ECLECTIC WORKS IN CANTIAMO SONOMA'S SEASON OPENING CONCERT

Cantiamo Sonoma’s season opener was delayed by a few weeks due to director Carol Menke’s summer surgery and recovery, so it was very gratifying to see her take to the podium (walker assisted and conducting seated) Oct. 27 for a lovely, if somewhat low-key performance in five sets with a brief intermission. As always, she hosted as well as conducted, giving thumbnail descriptions of the pieces performed.

Three Christmas themed pieces were included as teasers for the winter concert. The Church of the Roses was perhaps two-thirds full for this splendid hour of mood-stabilizing music and stellar choral singing.

Cantiamo specializes almost exclusively in Renaissance and contemporary neo-Renaissance a capella literature with an admirable emphasis on living composers. One, Michael John Trotta, was heard for the first time and impressed with his lyricism and expressively intimate text-setting.

Ms. Menke’s conducting was understandably less energetic than her usual fiery and ebullient self. In spite of that, she still maintained pinpoint focus, sculpting lovely phrases and drawing gorgeous sounds and dynamics from her choir. The group is so well-practiced and in tune with her and each other that the general performance quality was unaffected by her more subdued presence. But I did observe that they occasionally sounded a bit under energy compared to the high bar they’ve set for themselves in previous concerts. Their signature sound, intonation, and blend were as pristine as ever, but there were enough imperfect entrances to be noticeable, with the unison pitch on some first onsets not quite unison.

The program began with three peaceful offerings: At the Water’s Edge by Kevin Siegfried, Elaine Hagenberg’s “Still With Thee” and “Salutation” by Ëriks Ešenvalds. Next were three different, yet stylistically similar settings of the same Latin text “O Nata Lux”: a brief, more austere version by the Renaissance master Thomas Tallis, followed by the luxuriant harmonies of American composers Michael John Trotta and Morten Lauridsen.

After a short intermission they returned with
what Ms. Menke calls the “Christmas Portion”—sneak previews of numbers which will be sung at the Christmas concert in December. First was Walton’s lively “All This Time”, then two sweet lullabys, “Sleep Softly Now” by Ian Assersohn, and “The Lamb” by Kim André Arnesen.

Next came two settings of “Ubi Caritas”. Mr. Trotta’s version gifted us with the gorgeous solo alto work of Liesl Hall, and the Arnesen setting thrilled with chord clusters and general harmonic complexity, with an exciting, unexpected upward modulation to the final.

The most powerful piece of the evening for me was “Musica Dei Donum Optimi” by Orlando di Lasso, overwhelming in the sheer magnitude of the polyphonic part-writing by the Franco-Flemish Renaissance master of all time. Not to be outdone, Lasso’s contemporary Giaches de Wert brought the concert to a magnificent close with his richly voiced and syncopated “Gaudete in Domino”.