Parahyangan choir presents classy love songs

Parahyangan choir presents classy love songs

By Y. Bintang Prakarsa

JAKARTA (JP): Once again Avip Priatna renewed his longtime
association with the Parahyangan Catholic University Choir to
present a concert at the Dharmawangsa Hotel on Feb. 12 with smart
programming.

Under the theme "English Love Songs", they performed an
interestingly varied repertory of 16th and 17th century
madrigals, 17th century solo songs, part-songs from the 19th and
20th century, and 20th century folksong and pop song
arrangements.

It might be convenient to see it as a survey of English part-
song (vocal music for many voices, or lines, as opposed to music
for solo singer) tradition with a solo song interlude.

Before instant-and-canned music became our daily bread, one
made music to be heard. Vocal music was naturally a most
convenient choice and part-singing had long been a pastime for
the rich and noble in England.

First, they imported madrigals (settings of poetry usually for
five voices: two sopranos, alto, tenor, and bass), from Italy.
Inspired by Italian examples, English composers began to create
their own vernacular versions. As with their Italian
counterparts, a large proportion of madrigal texts deal with
love, but different from their Italian predecessors, English
madrigals are more restrained, although as evident in the seven
pieces performed at the concert, they do not abandon tone-
painting altogether.

In the popular piece Fair Phyllis I Saw Sitting by John
Farmer, the phrase "Up and down" is set to short descending
motifs and sung repeatedly by the voices in close succession to
suggest how Phyllis' lover wandered through the hills and valleys
on the mountain side.

The sorrow of Too Much I Once Lamented by Thomas Tomkins
(1572-1656), is represented by the minor mode and the use of
downward half-tone steps, as well as a rich tapestry of
suspensions (a suspension happens when a member of a previous
chord is kept for some time while other members have moved to a
new chord; the note then clashes with its new environment and
creates harmonic tension).

Expensive madrigal books were affordable only for a limited
number of people. With the availability of mass printing, part-
singing became a vehicle of artistic expression for the middle
classes.

Gradually part-songs were more likely to be performed by
choirs instead of soloists. Since the end of the 18th century,
amateur choirs -- choral societies -- began to flourish in
England, increasing the demand for unaccompanied choral music,
urging many composers to write in this genre, some masterful
pieces of which were sampled by the Parahyangan Choir: Lay a
Garland by Robert Pearsall (1795-1856), My Love Dwelt in a
Northern Land by Edward Elgar (1857-1934), and Three Shakespeare
Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). All of them share
the sumptuous voicing of an eight part choir (except the seven
voiced Full fathom five from Three Shakespeare Songs) that
requires two groups of sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses.

An exquisite jewel is Pearsall's Lay a Garland, a serene
eulogy that barely hides its poignancy. Pearsall's long,
sustained tones are enriched with suspensions that make it glow
softly, perhaps like Mendelssohn's choral music (this piece
reminds me of Mendelssohn's motet Warum tobe die Heiden, also in
eight voices).

While Elgar's piece is couched in late Romantic sensuous
harmony (Wagner had a significant influence on him), Vaughan
Williams' songs are more varied in mood, corresponding to the
text taken from Shakespeare's plays.

The impressionistic tone clusters in Full fathom five recall
the sea and its deep mysteries; the rambling harmonic progression
in The Cloud-capp'd Towers, points, no doubt, to the dreams and
sleep referenced in the text, while the whimsical Over Hill, Over
Dale is given a folksong-ish, pentatonic melody -- a reminder of
Williams' renown as a recycler of English folk tunes.

Between the madrigals and the choral songs, there was a
welcome diversion of four solo songs extracted from the dramatic
works of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), which gave relief to the
surrounding ensemble music.

The most difficult of the four is Sweeter than roses from
Pausanias, which opens with a rhapsodic arioso that grows into a
lively, melismatic song in triple meter.

Lastly, after the intermission, came the lighter songs,
unabashedly intended to entertain. They were folksong and pop
song arrangements -- enhanced with a trio of drums, piano, and
bass by three Parahyangan university alumni -- that seemed not
having anything to do with Weelkes and Vaughan Williams & Co.,
but again, we can see them as an indication that in Britain,
composers still supply music of any style for choirs and that
part-singing is still a living tradition.

Needless to say, the audience responded readily to
arrangements of popular tunes like the traditional Bobby Shaftoe
(by Gordon Langford) the Beatles' Michelle (by Grayston Ives) and
Yesterday (by Bob Chilcott), and Richard Rodgers' Blue Moon (by
David Blackwell). They applauded after each piece.

But how about the singing? Did the choir manage all the styles
successfully? Some of the madrigals were really gorgeous
(Tomkins' especially), but others were too heavy and
undisciplined, with faulty intonations here and there.

The Purcell pieces were sung wonderfully with a surprising
awareness toward Baroque vocal technique by the tenor Christopher
Abimanyu. But the piano! I think Avip knew very well that the
blunt sound of the piano was no match to Abimanyu's light and
crisp voice, and that in the West, people would laugh at the idea
of accompanying a Baroque song with piano in a serious
performance.

However, starting from Pearsall, the remainder of the show was
presented very well. They were most expressive in pacing and
phrasing the large gestures of Pearsall, Elgar, and Vaughan
Williams pieces, and their ensemble was stunningly beautiful,
especially in the Pearsall song.

The pop pieces were delivered with idiomatic aplomb, the choir
not missing any inflections and the soloists, especially the
light tenors, ornamenting their melodies very admirably (I wish
they transferred these to the madrigals!) Thus ended the concert
cheerfully for people on both sides of the stage.