Pictured below are the men of Quire, directed by Duffin, recording Gregorian chant for the anthology. Photos by Beverly Simmons, Quire’s Marketing Director and producer of the recordings. Thomas Knab was the recording engineer.

March 24, 2010, at 7:00 pm
Gartner Auditorium
Cleveland Museum of Art
11150 East Boulevard, Cleveland, OH

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Quire’s program featured some well-known carols from England, Spain & Mexico, Germany and the US and Canada as well as a few charming rarities — and four motets which gave weight to a program otherwise tilted toward short, strophic pieces.

The motets were John Sheppard’s sprawly and gorgeous pre-Reformation elaboration of the plainchant ‘Verbum caro factum est’, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck’s festive ‘Hodie Christus natus est’ and Tomás Luis de Victoria’s austerely beautiful ‘Quem vidistis, pastores’ and ‘O magnum mysterium.’ In these big pieces, Quire neatly and clearly negotiated tricky polyphony, expertly tuned parallel chords, leaned on dissonances — Sheppard featured some ear-bending cross-relations — and danced the triple-meter ‘Alleluias.’

The carols were arranged in sets after the opening piece, Lassus’ ‘Verbum caro’. A trio of Spanish pieces began with the well-known ‘Riu, riu, chiu’ which brought out a tambourine and spotlighted some of the fine male voices in brief solos. Fray Gerónimo Gonzales’ ‘Serenissima una noche,’ scored for high voices, provided a change up in texture and faded charmingly away at the end. Fabian Ximeno’s ‘Ay, ay, galeguiños’ was remarkable for its folkishly nasal dialect.

Things turned suddenly dark with William Byrd’s ‘Lullaby,’ at once a slumber song and a lament for the children slain by Herod, and with Thomas Ravenscroft’s sombre ‘Remember O thou man,’ the Christmas carol only a Puritan could have written (remember, Parliament actually banned the holiday in the 1640s).

During the Ravenscroft, Church of the Covenant organist Jonathan William Moyer made his first trip from the bass section to the Great Organ for Sweelinck’s variations on ‘Hodie Christus natus est,’ a Christmas piece that probably would never have been played during a service at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam in Sweelink’s day (Calvinists again, banning things). The four sparkling variations, which would instead have been heard during the composer’s city-sponsored weekday concerts, were perfectly suited to the cathedral’s Dutch organ. Moyer sought out expressive and colorful registrations, including some snarly reeds in the left hand against clear flutes in the right.

Sweelinck’s motet ended the first half of the evening; the second began with ‘The Huron Carol,’ which inspired a long and amusing paragraph in Ross Duffin’s excellent program notes. Long story short, Quire sang the six verses of Jean de Brébeuf’s sevententh-century poem in Wendat, the language of the Canadian Hurons, to a version of a French tune current in Brébeuf’s time as arranged by Duffin. It was simple and affecting. The language must have been difficult to learn.

Victoria’s ‘Quem vidistis’ followed, then Quire moved on to an American set. A setting of Martin Luther’s ‘Away in a manger’ had a complicated history for such a charmingly unpretentious tune from a shape note collection published in Ohio (alas, Trinity’s radiators began hissing in mid-carol, adding another extraneous noise to the curious hum that went on all evening). William Billings’ ‘A Virgin unspotted’ and ‘Methinks I see a heavenly host’ and Daniel Read’s ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night,’ are “fuguing tunes” by America’s first native-born composers. These rather rough-hewn Yankee pieces received the same refined vocal treatment as did the European works on the program.

Victoria’s ‘O magnum mysterium’ was traveling music for Jonathan Moyer, who ascended once again to give us a thrilling version of J. S. Bach’s ‘In dulci jubilo’, a brilliant setting of the chorale with interspersed cadenzas (perhaps this is what a hymn introduction sounded like in Bach’s hands).

Quire’s ‘Carols’ program ended with four German settings. Praetorius is having a big month at Trinity; yet another of his settings of ‘In dulci jubilo’ was stylishly sung there tonight — this one with two soprano solos — followed by a finely nuanced performance of ‘Es ist ein’ Ros’ entsprungen.’ Johann Walther’s ‘Joseph lieber, Joseph mein’ was a dialogue between high and low voices, reflecting a conversation between Mary and Joseph. The program closed with ‘Wachet auf’ in a composite setting to which Praetorius contributed the first two verses, J. S. Bach the third (the ornately harmonized final stanza from the cantata BWV 140).

Like Apollo’s Fire the week before, Quire Cleveland provided Cleveland audiences with a sophisticated yet accessible version of a Christmas concert, well conceived, intelligently structured, elaborately documented and beautifully performed. If it becomes a yearly event for Quire Cleveland, it will be interesting to see how Peter Bennett develops subsequent editions of ‘Carols for Quire.’ This was an auspicious start.

Read the original at ClevelandClassical.com [pdf].

So it was a pleasure to encounter such an outpouring of glorious and unfamiliar Christmas works from the golden throats of Quire Cleveland on Friday at Trinity Cathedral. The professional chorus, which largely performs a cappella, was in resplendent form offering four centuries of “Carols for Quire,” as the program was called.

While Quire’s name comes from an ancient spelling of the word choir, the ensemble’s performances are freshly and purely alive. Under music director Peter Bennett, the 19 voices emerge in crystal-clear balance, whether they’re singing in pristine unison or traversing a multitude of lines.

The repertoire Bennett led with graceful sensitivity Friday spanned the 16th through the 19th centuries and many nations. Among the few pieces contemporary audiences might recognize were Michael Praetorius’ “In dulci jubilo” (which Apollo’s Fire and company performed recently in its original Latin version and better-known English incarnation, “Good Christian Friends, Rejoice”) and “Away in the Manger,” though in a setting markedly different in melody and harmony from what most choirs warble.

Bennett and his singers charted luminous territory, starting with Orlando di Lasso’s motet “Resonet in laudibus,” which alternates seamlessly between quadruple and triple meters, and winding up with a setting of “Wachet auf” with two verses by Praetorius and one by Bach.

Everything sounded angelic and nuanced as floated in Trinity’s welcoming acoustics, despite mechanical building hums that occasionally intruded. Jonathan William Moyer took leave of his job as a baritone in the chorus to give vibrant accounts of works by Sweelinck and Bach on the church’s imposing Flentrop organ.

The program ventured from Europe and Colonial Mexico to New France (Canada) and America. From the Old World, there was a stream of rapturous polyphony in John Sheppard’s motet, “Verbum caro.” The Spanish pieces included Fabian Ximeno’s chipper “Ay, ay galeguinos,” with exuberant kicks on “ay, ay,” and subtly graded echo effects in Fray Geronimo Gonzales’ “Serenissima una nocha.”

One of Spain’s most inspired composers, Tomas Luis de Victoria, contributed two works of mesmerizing beauty, “Quem vidistis” and “O magnum mysterium,” the latter moving from hushed, yearning utterances to lilting strains of “Alleluia.”

America’s input in things Yuletide was heralded with the surprising “Away in the manger” and William Billings’ dance-loving “Judea,” while Praetorius, Bach and Johann Walther (comrade of Martin Luther and composer of the captivating “Joseph lieber”) returned musical matters to the Old World.

Throughout the program, Quire’s scrupulous attention to dynamics, phrasing and tonal sheen allowed the music to reach out with touching and spirited arms.

Read the original at cleveland.com.