Back Bay Chorale opens season with program inspired by Hussey commissions
The Back Bay Chorale performed a program Friday night at Old South Church inspired by commissions by the Rev. Walter Hussey, which included Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.
The Back Bay Chorale, under music director Stephen Spinelli, began its season at Old South Church Friday night with an homage to the English clergyman Walter Hussey.
A patron of the arts, Hussey commissioned Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, and others to write for the church. The chorus traced that legacy through a program of unquestionable power if fitful finesse.
Organist Tim Pyper began the evening with Britten’s Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria written in 1946 for St. Matthew’s Church, Northampton, where Hussey was vicar. Pyper seamlessly moved between its softest and loudest registrations without a seam. However, the chorus undercut him as choristers filed in during the piece, settling directly in front of the organ bench during the work’s most climatic sequences.
The world premiere of Zachary Wadsworth’s De Profundis followed.
Wadsworth’s work sets a handful of lines from the letter Oscar Wilde wrote to Lord Alfred Douglas from Reading Gaol, where he was serving two years’ hard labor after a conviction for “gross indecency.” The text offers a powerful glimpse into the isolation of a persecuted man, though the chorus struggled to give Wilde’s words the clarity they demanded.
The organ opens in a dark minor, wandering and harmonically unsettled, and the choir assembles Wilde’s sentences in halting fragments. The piece rarely leaves that bare sound-world, though Wadsworth balanced polyphonic and homophonic writing with care and expert precision.
Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb followed, the 1943 cantata Hussey commissioned for St. Matthew’s fiftieth anniversary. Here the chorus found firmer ground, singing with impressive volume and some thrilling fortes, though here too the fast running text at the opening blurred.
Among the soloists, all drawn from this volunteer chorus, tenor Landon Staley’s beautiful tone stood out in “For the flowers are great blessings.” Bass Wayne Wilkins brought a warm, complete sound to “For H is a spirit.” As an ensemble, closing “For the instruments are by their rhymes” was genuine fun.
The chorus found its strongest dynamism in Wadsworth’s Beyond the Years, a 2017 setting of Paul Laurence Dunbar led by conducting apprentice Grigori Balasanyan.
Each of Dunbar’s three stanzas begins with the title phrase, and Wadsworth’s music builds toward the final return. Balasanyan shaped the dynamic progression with care, and the chorus responded enthusiastically as the organ opened beneath the voices. The result was one of the evening’s most satisfying climaxes.
Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms closed the program in the composer’s own scoring for organ, harp, and percussion.
All credit is due to organist Justin Thomas Blackwell, harpist Angelina Savoia, and percussionist Luis Herrera Albertazzi for supplying an orchestra’s worth of color and energy. The chorus boasted ample forces, and the opening invocation from Psalm 108 landed with authority. The ensuing Psalm 100 was less successful. For all its power, the ensemble’s indistinct Hebrew diction obscured much of the text.
Savoia’s delicate harp playing framed treble Edgerton Allen Fiala beautifully in the Psalm 23 setting. The sopranos and altos answered with nimbleness. The men’s forceful interruption with Psalm 2, adapted from music Bernstein had cut from West Side Story, convincingly shattered the calm.
The final movement brought the chorus close to the unity that was a sometime thing in the first half. The repeated “Adonai, Adonai” emerged with greater cohesion, bringing the concert to a spectacular close and an immediate ovation from the audience.
The Back Bay Chorale performs “A Boston Christmas” 7:30 p.m. Dec. 18 and 4 p.m. Dec. 19 at Old South Church. bbcboston.org
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