New York Classical Review

There have been many stylistic periods in classical music history, but across one thousand-plus years there have been only two fundamental epochs: before the invention of audio recording technology and after. Being able to make and hear recordings changed how musicians play in prominent ways—like the rise of vibrato in string playing—and also how composers made music. 

Subtle, but pervasive, there are essential differences between thinking of how music will sound live in an acoustic space, and how it will sound preserved and coming out of a stereo for a lone listener. Though it can be exceedingly close, recorded audio can only ever be a simulation of the real thing.

The glories of the real thing, a live performance in front of an audience, filled the Cathedral of St. John the Divine Wednesday night. For the Great Music in a Great Space series, the Musica Sacra chorus sang a seamless season-opening program that interweaved ancient and modern liturgical and sacred music. Thoughtfully put together by Kent Tritle, who conducted, this was a wonderful experience, beautiful music with a moving formal shape, and something that could never be duplicated with a recording.

“SurRound III” was the title of the performance, the latest in a series that has the chorus surrounding the audience as it sang, forming a horseshoe shape at the head of the aisle. But it didn’t start there—the chorus began singing a “Gloria” plainchant as they slowly walked up the nave from the back of the cathedral. In the soaring, resonant space this was a lapping of gentle waves that built into a shining, deep, transporting mass of sound.

One felt this was the same experience of song one would have had 1,000 years ago. The music wasn’t explicitly ceremonial, a mix of liturgical segments, spirituals, and some modern and contemporary works, sung in uninterrupted sequence. Thomas Tallis’ “Sing and Glorify” followed the chant, then the Kyrie from Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G minor. That featured four fine soloists—soprano Zen Wu, mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn, tenor Gregório Tanaguchi, and baritone Nathaniel Sullivan—positioned in front of the quire. (During the performance, the singers swapped positions several times, shifting sound and colors.)

This seemed to mark an unofficial subsection, like an extended introduction to acclimate the listener to the special qualities of this concert. The next ran from Arvo Pärt’s Da Pacem Domine, a glowing performance with vocal lines passing across the audience; to the soprano Kathryn McCreary walking down the aisle singing “Wade in the Water”; then through the Agnus Dei of Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir; and closing with more chant.

This ramped up to a part that felt climactic, with music that was both more rousing and more intimate. It started with a robust performance of Renaissance composer Alessandro Striggio’s Ecce Beat Lucem, with a chant leading to an enthralling Antiphon for God the Father by modern composer Nancy Wertsch. Pure-toned soprano Linda Jones led this from the pulpit, the chorus responding from three antiphonal groupings, counterpoint both in music and space. 

Bass-baritone Joseph Beutel rang out with the traditional “We’ll understand it better by and by,” then Caroline Shaw’s And the swallow and another traditional segued into a glorious Spem in Alium from Tallis—beyond the experience of Janet Cardiff’s sound installation with 40 speakers, The Forty Part Motet—and then the finale.

That was “Now is the cool of day,” a song by the great Appalachian folk singer Jean Ritchie. Mezzo Tracy Cowart led this from the pulpit, with an earthy quaver in her sound. This was deeply communicative, rich with complex emotions, a secular vernacular text with a sacred feeling, a kind of Great Oversoul happening. After their bows, and while the audience was still applauding, the chorus began another chant, an Agnus Dei, and headed back down the nave once more toward the distant narthex of this great cathedral. Cantantes exierunt.

Music Sacra sings “Classics for Christmas,” 7:30 p.m. December 17 at Carnegie Hall. musicasacrany.org