Palm Beach Symphony, Florida Atlantic University Symphony Chorale deliver moving Beethoven Masses

By KEN KEATON

Special to the Daily News

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Ray Robinson and the Palm Beach Symphony's performance of two Masses was not planned to coincide with Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the White House; it was an accident of scheduling.

But Tuesday's concert for a packed house of about 250-300 at the Flagler Museum pavilion may as well have been so planned. The audience enjoyed a deeply moving experience.

Robinson chose two very different compositions, and made much of the differences in setting the same text. One could go much further in considering settings of the same words.

A musical setting of the Catholic Mass is always a setting of the same text; the Ordinary, those portions that do not change according to the church calendar, but are "ordinarily" included.

These words have been set more often than any text in all history. The text isn't terribly poetic, but it has been a part of Western cultural heritage for nearly 2 millennia, and thousands of settings have been made. Ludwig van Beethoven wrote two Masses, of which the Missa solemnis of his late period is the more famous.

On Tuesday, Robinson and his forces performed the Mass in C, contemporary with the fourth symphony and the fourth piano concerto, and both sharing deep lyricism. It is less profound, less awesome, than the Missa solemnis, but rather easier to love.

The chorus for the concert was the Florida Atlantic University Symphony Chorale. In the interest of full disclosure, let me say this reviewer is a professor of music at FAU. I know, and have taught, many of the students in the choir. But even if this were a completely unfamiliar group, I would still say their performance was admirable, and I suspect most of the audience would agree. In fact, everyone – orchestra, chorus, soloists – sounded magnificent. The balance was perfect. The chorus was velvety and smooth, strong or tender or joyous as needed.

The symphony sounded beautiful and perfectly wedded to the other forces.

The quartet of vocal soloists – Kiera Duffy, Kristin Brouwer, Eduardo Aladre'n and Won Cho – also was perfectly balanced. There were no arias, though each of the soloists had the occasional phrase. But each voice was fine, youthful, strong, beautiful; none stood out.

Beethoven's Mass in C is a joyous work. The opening Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy) was sung with the expectation of receiving mercy.

Could anyone hear the Gloria with dry eyes, or the Credo without realizing that this what an affirmation of faith sounds like?

In the concluding Dona nobis pacem (Grant us peace), Beethoven resisted the temptation for theatricality, choosing affirmation instead of artifice.

The second half of the concert consisted of Giacomo Puccini's Messe di Gloria. It is an early work, composed when the operatic master-to-be was still a student. The influences are from the operatic choruses of Gioachino Rossini's Guillaume Tell? Arrigo Boito's Mephistophiles, and Verdi. Counterpoint is kept to a minimum. There was even a tenor aria for Aladre'n that might have come from Turandot, though given the nature of the text, the soloist's sobs were not terribly appropriate. Even though this is a student work, some of Puccini's mature style was already evident. Said orchestra was more prominent here, with several independent sections, and sounded glorious.

Before the Puccini was performed, an audience member took the microphone and commented how fortunate we in Palm Beach are to hear such marvelous music.

She was right. This was a worthy conclusion to the Palm Beach Symphony season, one that will resonate in the memory for a long time.