PORTLAND – Epiphany traditionally celebrates the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus. The Choral Art Society Camerata brought musical gold, frankincense and myrrh to Williston-Immanuel United Church in its celebration Saturday night.

The audience, the largest in recent memory, heard what was almost a reprise of Christmas in the Cathedral, with a juxtaposition of ancient and modern, choral and instrumental music, all of high quality.

The Camarata, conducted by music director Robert Russell, was assisted by the Meliora String Quartet, Neil Boyer, oboe, Betty Rines, trumpet, and Dan Moore, organ, with soloists Sarah Johnson, soprano, Andrea Graichen, mezzo soprano, Stuart Baily, tenor, and Aaron Engebreth, bass.

It pains me to say that the least successful part of the concert was the opening Bach Canata No. 70 “Wachet, betet! betet! wachet!” (“Watch, pray, pray, watch”). The Bach cantatas are a mixed bag, some of them glorious music and some of them potboilers. No. 70 occupies the middle ground, with some lively instrumental music and too much recitative. The arias are fine, but the chorales at beginning and end are what make it work.

I sometimes think that “great” composers, Bach included, are accorded too much reverence, which sets performance practices in concrete and leaves no room for the free interpretation that Bach would have expected.

The first half of the program concluded with “The Midwife’s Tale” by James Woodman (b. 1957), based on a medieval folk tale about the incarnation. Like St. Saens, he takes traditional tonal forms and injects something new into them. The sweet writing for string quartet and chorus was outstanding.

I am a sucker for medieval carols in choppy Latin meter, and the “Gaudet” from the Piae Cantiones (1582), which opened the second half, was a perfect example, with some antique Spanish thrown in.

It set the stage for several absolutely gorgeous shorter songs, including solos by Laura Whitney, soprano, and Abra Mueller, mezzo-soprano, that were strangely ethereal. I particularly liked the new “Ave Maria” that David Conte wrote for the a capella group Chanticleer, but the gem of the evening was the “Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre (b. 1970). The composer predicted that “…if the tight harmonies are carefully tuned and balanced they will shimmer and glow.” They did.

There were two works by Maine composers on the program: “Cor Meum est Templum Sacrum” by Patricia van Ness and “O magnum mysterium,” by Jesse Wakeman, who was in the audience.

Wakeman, a student at the University of Southern Maine, makes fluent use of a modern idiom to convey the mysterious nature of the manger scene. Van Ness sets her own mystical poetry, translated into Latin, in a traditional style that makes effective use of chromatic scales and the solo voice. It was a fitting end to a magical program.

 

Christopher Hyde’s Classical Beat column appears in the Maine Sunday Telegram. He can be reached at:

classbeat@netscape.net

 

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