Musica intima proves both bitter and sweet

Musica intima kicked off its latest season Friday and Saturday with a pair of concerts devoted almost exclusively to contemporary repertoire. The ensemble, now more than two decades old, began when a group of professional-level singers decided to explore music-making without the services of an alpha conductor.

Personnel have changed over the years, but the goal and method of performing under a “shared leadership model” has stayed the same. And, from the evidence of Saturday’s program at Dunbar Heights United Church, so have the enterprise’s strengths and weaknesses.

Awkward lurches in both the style and quality of music on offer betrayed programming by committee, papered over with an unconvincing announced theme of love, both sweet and bitter. The evening began with Tota pulcra es by choral cult favourite Ola Gjeilo, music easy on the ears — and even easier to forget.

Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia, on the other hand, is a masterwork, but not a particularly user-friendly one, certainly not the sort of piece to prepare and deliver by consensus, and performed with far too many rough edges for comfort. Then came Larry Nickel’s I Cannot Dance, which manages to be both crass and sanctimonious. Four of Morten Lauridsen’s six Madrigali proved to be music of character and quality. Deeply indebted to Italian idioms of the late 16th century, these excerpts were delivered with flair and commitment.

The program’s second half also had its duds, but David Lang’s I Live in Pain for female voices proved another worthwhile choice. Without lapsing into minimalist clichés, Lang’s overlapping phrases create an arresting, unconventional work. Craig Galbraith’s Sérénade, a setting of a text by Verlaine, was commissioned years ago by musica intima. It is dark and, in the best sense, complex; Galbraith knows choirs and often chooses unexpected colours, to remarkably fresh and powerful effect.

A premiere by the acknowledged dean of Canadian choral composers, Stephen Chatman, followed. I Would Live in Your Love was slight, but, as one expects from Chatman, elegantly crafted and beautifully sung.