In programming an American Bach Choir concert with the ambitious title "Vocal Visionaries," conductor Jeffrey Thomas set his sights high. Not only did he choose choral music that, in his opinion, displays the transcendent, visionary gifts of its composers, but he also strove to transport his audience with radiant vocalism. That's a tall order, especially when the music is as challenging as the chosen works, by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Richard Strauss, Eric Whitacre, and Sven-David Sandström.
I attended the second of four consecutive concerts, held in Berkeley's resonant First Congregational Church. The first half of the program was devoted to one of the defining spiritual works of the Renaissance, Victoria's Requiem for six voices (SSATTB; 1603, published 1605). Thomas began what he introduced as an "astonishingly beautiful" Mass with "Taedet animam meam vitae meae" (I am weary at heart of my life), a four-voice work that Victoria, a priest, included somewhere in the initial performance at the funeral of the extremely well-positioned albeit ultimately horizontal Dowager Empress Maria, daughter of Charles V, wife of Maximilian II, and sister of Philip II.
As the music began, my initial reaction was that the "Taedet animam" seemed a bit perfunctory, far too plain to start an acknowledged masterpiece. (No wonder Peter Philips chose to exclude it from the Tallis Scholars' recording of the work.) While the chorus began to find its sonorous groove in the Introitus, "Requiem aeternam" (Grant them eternal rest), something did not seem right. Where were the sounds of timeless exaltation, pious devotion, and chaste purity that can transform Victoria's oft-seeming lack of the bold statement into a transcendent testament of the Christian faith?
Time and again, I closed my eyes, not only to shut out the unnaturally bright, glaring light that Thomas insists on — light far brighter than would ever illumine a cathedral, most certainly brighter than that required for reading fine print — but also to better experience liftoff. But it just didn't happen. As someone who has read countless reviews clearly penned by critics who were experiencing either physical exhaustion or bad digestion, I silently conducted an internal check to ascertain whether the problem was rooted in yours truly.
While audience members who loved what they heard may point irate fingers at you know who, my own critical faculties suggest that something musical was amiss. Perhaps the singers were tired or saving themselves for the even more challenging second half. Perhaps Thomas chose to focus more on the movement of Victoria's lines than the big picture (aka God). Certainly the singers were not always together, with numerous entrances throughout the evening marked by some voices sounding a bit slower than others. For whatever reasons, the angelic sopranos, faith-solid basses, and radiant vocalism that this work requires simply weren't there.