SMAM CHOIR FALTERS AND SOARS WITH ORLANDE DE LASSUS WORKS
The 16th-century Netherlandish composer Orlande de Lassus — a.k.a. Orlando di Lasso, Roland de Lassus and several other globalized aliases — led a life worthy of a Rabelais novel. Legend has it that he was kidnapped several times as a child because of his beautiful voice. He served as a musician at some of the bloodiest, most intrigue-laden courts of the time, counting Cosimo de’ Medici among his bosses. He survived to enjoy continentwide fame, aristocratic titles and financial security. When he died in Munich in 1594, he left behind a lovely garden and an enormous catalogue of some of the most stunning vocal music ever written.
The professional choir of the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal performed an all-Orlando program Thursday evening as part of the Music and Beyond Festival. The ensemble was under the direction of new artistic director Andrew McAnerney who also conducts Ottawa’s Cantata Singers.
McAnerney replaces beloved SMAM founder Christopher Jackson, who died of lung cancer last fall. It’s a particularly difficult position for a new conductor, but McAnerney is so far filling Jackson’s shoes with grace, sensitivity and impeccable musical credentials.
McAnerney, who has an affable, articulate English charm, started with an enlightening talk about de Lassus, whom Jackson considered the greatest of all Renaissance composers, surpassing even Palestrina. Jackson’s stamp was all over the evening’s program, which he had prepared as a CD project before his untimely death (the choir recently recorded it in Montreal).
I’ve heard this small ensemble sing spectacularly well, including last summer at Chamberfest under McAnerney. Last night was not one of those occasions.
The vocalists were not helped by the stifling heat and humidity inside St. Joe’s, nor by its cavernous acoustics. Tuning slid toward flat, blending was uneven, and expressive tension sometimes seemed flaccid and lacklustre.
The sopranos sounded uncharacteristically colourless and vinegary, but they also rallied to produce moments of angelic purity, like in the shapely plainchant sections of the Te Deum. That work, with its impressive scope and astonishing dramatic contrasts, was overall the strongest piece of the evening.
Other highlights included the vividly painted Omnia tempus habent and Ad Dominum cum tribularer, the tender, loving Alma Redemptoris Mater, and Musica Dei donum optimi, performed as a gentle prayer of gratitude for the gift of music.