A Feast for the Senses

What better way to celebrate a choir's 30th anniversary season and its conductor's 20th year than to present two masterpieces of the choral tradition?  The Amadeus Choirs' opening concert, held on October 16 at the George Weston Recital Hall, was certainly a harbinger of more wonderful music from this highly respected choir during its 2004-2005 concert season.

Conductor and Artistic Director Lydia Adams led the choir in its first performance of Mozart's Mass in C Minor and William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast.  Although these pieces are both derived from the religious tradition, they couldn't be more different.

Mozart's Mass, written in 1782, was one of two major choral works left unfinished at Mozart's death, the other being the Requiem.  Of the usual mass movements, some sections exist only in sketches, and others are missing completely.  The version performed at the concert is a reconstruction by Helmut Eder in 1916.

Mozart's setting of the Mass with its double choruses and contrapuntal textures relect his discovery of the music of the Baroque masters, Bach and Handel.  The solo sections, however, are unmistakably Mozartian in their elegant operatic style.  

The choir, supplemented by Rome's Nova Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, performed the choral sections beautifully.  In these, Mozart is looking very much to the past.  There are many complicated fugal sections, often for eightpart chorus.  These were executed with great confidence by the choir.  Stately dotted-note French overture style music opens two of the movements.

Soprano Sharla Nafziger and mezzo-sorpano Andrea Ludwig have perfect Mozartian voices.  Their individual arias were superb, and in the duet, their voices were delightfully blended.  The soprano aria, 'Et incarnatus est,' features Mozart's fine writing for flute, oboe and bassoon.  In this Mass he uses men's voices sparingly.  Unfortunately, in the performance it was difficult to hear tenor Stephen Harland and the baritone.

By contrast, Belshazzar's Feast is written in the musical language of the 10th century, two centuries later than Mozart's Mass.  This spectacular work describes an epic Old Testament story and is based on the English oratorio tradition of Handel.  It embodies, however, the raw energy, pervasive dissonances and rhythmic vitality that are unmistakably of Walton's time.

Baritone Jeffrey Carl proved to be a fine solosit in Walton's dramatic oratorio Belshazzar's Feast, which premiered in 1931.   Sir Osbert Sitwell set this story about the last Babylonian king and the fall of that empire, to texts from the Bible.  This work is scored for baritone, double chorus, and large orchestra, with greatly expanded brass and percussion sections.

As the drama unfolds, the music itself describes the action.  The chorus characterizes the different masses of people and each has its own music.

Walton uses a variety of musical elements to express events, such as angular melodic lines, jarring harmonies, loud brass sounds, sharply contrasting dynamics, and unusual percussion instruments.  As well, he makes use of the Baroque device of word painting, the imitation of movements or sounds, such as those when the Israelites 'wept' and the king was 'slain'.

In the span of 35 minutes, Walton takes us through emotional extremes, from the opening lament of the Jews through the wild abandonment of the feast.  There is an abrupt change with the appearance of the Hebrew message on the wall, "Thou art weighted in the balance and found wanting."  Belshazzar, the King, is slain and his kingdom divided, to joyful exclamations and lengthy 'alleluias'.

The lively acoustics in the hall did justice to Walton's brilliant orchestration, but they are more suited to smaller ensembles.  In the Mass it was sometimes difficult to maintain the proper balance between the choir, orchestra and soloists.  As well, if smaller forces had been used, it would have been more faithful to performance practices of Mozart's time.  It was also disappointing that the Fanfare commissioned by the choir from Canadian Scott Irving and listed in their brochure did not materialize.

Apart from these small criticisms, it was an evening of sublime music.  Conductor Lydia Adams, one of Canada's pre-eminent choral directors, was able to draw out splendid effects from the choir and orchestra.  The Amadeus Choir has made an auspicious start to its next decade.