Richard Jobe, organ; Taylor Festival Choir/Dr. Robert Taylor
Centaur 2773 – 67 minutes
The Taylor Festival Choir is a top-notch ensemble of around 20 professional singers who gather every June in Charleston, SC for the Taylor Music Festival. This unique happening combines classical choral music and Celtic music, and this choir is the flagship ensemble for the festival’s choral end. Here we have a winning and varied array of 20th-Century and contemporary choral gems (some a cappella, others with organ) recorded in 2003 and 2004.
Among the featured composers are emerging choral writers Brian Galante and Trevor Weston, who have recently served as the festival’s composers-in-residence. Galante’s contributions here include ‘On Meditation,’ an ecstatic setting of an ancient Chinese text. ‘A Clear Midnight’ gives wondrous wing to a nocturnal poem from Walt Whitman; its opening line, “This is thy hour, O soul,” serves as the album’s title. His serene ‘Ave Maria’ setting ends the collection on a lustrous and gentle note.
Weston, one of Taylor’s fellow professors at the College of Charleston, has a special affinity for sacred music – especially in its Anglican guise (he grew up singing in NYC’s legendary St. Thomas Choir). His settings of the classic ‘Magnificat’ and ‘Nunc Dimittis’ texts are achingly lovely as well as spiritually potent, conveying a radiant sense of holy mystery and wonder.
Tribute to the English masters comes with Benjamin Britten’s reflective, then jubilant ‘Festival Te Deum’ – one of his sacred masterpieces. Organist Richard Jobe shines here, as elsewhere. Then there’s Ralph Vaughan Williams’ radiant and imploring ‘Prayer to the Father of Heaven,’ setting a 16th-century supplication by John Skelton. Brazilian composer Ernani Aguiar’s stirring Salmo 150 recalls the music of his homeland’s colonial period.
American standout William Schuman is honored via his three Carols of Death – also Whitman settings. Despite the often bleak and fatalistic tone of the texts, this is appealing material. ‘To All, to Each’ – the last of the three – is an especially touching song of comfortable resignation to one’s mortality. Another domestic classic is Aaron Copland’s exuberant early motet, ‘Sing Ye Praises.’
Two of the most exciting and original items are from Eric Whitacre, one of today’s true choral superstars. A few of the world’s leading chamber choirs have recorded Water Night andCloudburst – both treating texts by Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. The impact of Cloudburst can be particularly stunning. Both numbers employ cunning tone-clusters and startling effects, requiring the kind of needlepoint intonation and vocal transparency that only a very accomplished choir can pull off.
And this terrific bunch is fully up to such demands. I’ve heard a certain top English ensemble perform these pieces with marginally better precision, refinement and tonal purity – but also with a typically English sense of what I call “celestial sterility.” While that approach certainly works for this music, Dr. Taylor’s singers engage the music’s emotions more deeply, while bringing a warmer, more robust sound to bear.
Their singing more than satisfies elsewhere in the album, too – with exceptional tonal range, excellent diction and sensitive phrasing: all hallmarks of Taylor’s several excellent choirs in the Charleston area. The only place where pitches sound a bit off is in the fearsome broken chords of the Britten Te Deum’s fast section – having sung the piece, I know how hard it is to nail some of those notes.
Sonic characteristics are variable, owing to the different recording venues – but
Centaur’s engineering delivers mostly warm, clear sound. The booklet is useful, with interesting notes and near-complete texts (only those for the Schuman pieces are missing). In all, fans of modern choral music will find much to enjoy here. And it’s a shining tribute to the director’s late father, Bob Taylor (also an exceptional choirmaster), to whom the album is dedicated.
Lindsay Koob
Former Choral Critic
American Record Guide
