Concert review: Rose Ensemble unearths a sovereign Hawaii's music
By William Randall Beard, Special to the Star Tribune
September 24, 2007
Who knew that early music could be so political? In celebration of the release of its latest CD, "Hawai'i Revealed: Music from the Soul of the Hawaiian Saga," the early-music specialists Rose Ensemble offered an evening of music and history from the sovereign nation of Hawaii, before it fell victim to U.S. imperialism. The Fitzgerald Theatre was home on Sunday night to unfamiliar music that should be better known.
The program is outside of what is traditionally considered "early music" (Western European music written before 1750), but the Rose Ensemble frequently pushes that envelope. And this is a valuable tradition on the verge of being lost, so the group has done a great service in preserving it. If the selections of the concert and CD are any indication, before Queen Lili'uokalani was forced to surrender her kingdom to the United States, she presided over a court of remarkable sophistication. The Rose Ensemble spent several years studying the difficult Hawaiian language and mastering the diverse musical traditions to do this music justice. But this was no pedantic exercise.
The selections in this theatrical and entertaining program included native Polynesian folk tunes, as well as other traditional melodies that sounded remarkably like plainchant. There were numbers betraying the influence of Christian missionaries, familiar hymns with lyrics in the distinctive Hawaiian language and Hawaiian versions of 19th-century English parlor songs.
There were other cultural influences too, like the Spanish-tinged tunes of the paniolo, the Mexican cowboys imported to work the ranches. And the Rose Ensemble was not afraid to include some kitsch, Hawaiian songs from the 1930s. The evening concluded with moving performances of intensely patriotic anthems, one written by Queen Lili'uokalani herself.
The Rose Ensemble's intellectual rigor as well as the vocal proficiency led to idiomatic and compelling performances that deserve to be savored.