Singing Along
Outdoor summer concerts, one of the bonuses of living in Nashville, have been somewhat “iffy” of late. When it hasn’t rained, it has poured—which is why I went for the sure thing last Sunday evening, a concert by the Battle Creek Boychoir at McKendree United Methodist Church. For me, concerts of choral music by children are a sure thing for more than meteorological reasons. In the dim days beyond recall, I too was a boy chorister singing Mozart masses, and I have never lost my taste for the sound of a talented boys’ choir in action. For many years, I have read good things about the Battle Creek organization, and even if it had been raining inside the McKendree sanctuary, I would not have missed it. Perhaps I expected too much, because all was not praiseworthy; even so, these kids were still pretty good.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the evening was the rich vein of largely unheard repertoire from which conductor Brooks Grantier had constructed his program. In most English-speaking countries, ensembles of boy trebles exist to perform works from the English choral tradition. Such ensembles might occasionally essay Mozart, the occasional treble part from a Mahler symphony, a Bach motet, or modern American part songs, but the bread-and-butter repertoire for these groups stretches from English composers such as Tallis and Byrd right through to Stanford and Walton.
Not so the boys from Battle Creek. They started with a very intriguing set of religious works composed in what was once known as “Nueva España.” From the baroque era through the beginning of the 19th century, New Spain encompassed everything from Mexico down to Tierra del Fuego—Brazil excepted. The mix of baroque, early classical, native, and African styles made for an unusual sound that is only now being rediscovered. BCB began their set with a “Jubilate Deo” by the Cuban Esteban Salas, then performed Guatemalan Rafael Castellanos’ motet “Es la Fee de Pedro” and Venezuelan Cayteno Carreno’s setting of “Tristis est anima mea.” The group concluded with two villancicos, peasant-style settings that often include native instruments, by Guatemalan Manuel Quiroz and Mexican Antonio Salazar.
Of these five pieces, the most interesting was Carreno’s “Tristis.” It had the tuneful beauty of a work by J.C. Bach, Mozart, or even Juan Chrisostomo Arriaga, Mozart’s Spanish contemporary. Here the BCB sang right out—there was no hesitation or diffidence in their performance—and their diction had an especial tang. While the Salas and Castellanos works were off-putting, the blame should not be placed on the ensemble. Although the singers could have been managed with more zest, the piano accompaniments were truly the problem here. There was a perfectly adequate organ at hand, and it would have been much more appropriate to the spirit of the works.
The spirit was also in question for the two villancicos. I’m afraid that the boys’ schooling in the English choral style was their undoing here: These works needed the color and verve of fiesta day at the plaza, but what they got was tea party, pinky extended, in the garden of Lord and Lady Farquhar. There were also several lapses in ensemble, many instances of ragged cut-offs, and even some imprecise entrances. Kids, watch your conductor—he was making all the right motions, but you weren’t looking.
After the interval, the Battle Creek Boychoir did fair by two numbers that they were expected to shine in, Charles Waters’ “Sing Alleluia Forth With Duteous Praise” and Christopher Walker’s “Cry Out With Joy.” The kids absolutely nailed Waters’ piece with fine unison singing, good phrasing, superior enunciation, steady pitch control, and descants that floated into the stratosphere. They also had no trouble, small group though they were, being heard over McKendree’s organ.
The group did, however, experience some problems with the Walker piece. The idiom was pure ’60s, with the kind of quirky syncopation that makes so many works from that era hard to sing together. The only way an ensemble can navigate these reefy musical waters is to stick close to its director and hope that he or she knows how to do it. Conductor Grantier indeed knew how, but again, many of the boys simply weren’t paying attention. This piece was plagued by ragged cutoffs at the end of almost every phrase, and the singers seemed unable to swing into the syncopations.
Just as I was beginning to slip into my surly-critic mode, however, the choir launched into another musical byway, two pieces by guitarist Laurindo Almeida followed by a pair of works by Heitor Villa-Lobos. All these pieces were imbued with the silky sensuality of the samba, but the set-opener, Almeida’s “Coro e Batuque,” received the best performance. The ensemble managed a softer vocalise here, and they made the music sway—something they were unable to do with many of the other works on the program. Their Portuguese was pretty good, with those slushy “sh” and “zh” sounds that make the language purl like water in a brook, but after the first Almeida piece, I could sense that the eyes of the choristers had begun to glaze over.
The rest was perfunctory. The boys seemed to forget the laziness of their Portuguese for Almeida’s “Bia-Ta-Ta,” and they were so foursquare English in their renderings of Villa-Lobos’ “Estrella e Lua Nova” and “Samba-Classico” that the Rio referenced in this first work was not de Janeiro but the Thames. The English vowel sounds, British vocal production, and total lack of enthusiasm sank the strong patriotic feelings of “Samba-Classico” as surely as the British Navy could sink the Brazilian fleet.
The final numbers on the program were a set of “Disney Souvenirs”—“When You Wish Upon a Star,” “It’s a Small World,” and an encore of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” Again, the choir sang with a proper British vowel sound that was not always appropriate to the music—this was an especial problem with “When You Wish Upon a Star.” On the other hand, the piano four-hands accompaniment to “It’s a Small World” was a hoot—I wanted to get up and polka, but this was a church sanctuary. The alto soloist on the encore was so good that it occurred to me the group’s solo talent could have been utilized much better throughout the evening.
In the end, my impressions were very mixed. Perhaps the members of the Battle Creek Boychoir were tired from their journey and not at their peak of readiness. Whatever the case, they either need to become more comfortable with their different styles of performance, or they ought to stick to the English choral tradition. But even within the British style, they need to loosen up a bit and perform with more verve.
I heard very few pitch problems throughout the evening, but the members of the ensemble still need to pay much more attention to their director. Of course, when I was their age, I had the same problem. I can still hear my old choir director Robert “Coach” Campiglia: “That T was late, Mr. Adams. Would you like to sing with the rest of us, or will that be 10 push-ups?” God, I hate push-ups.
