Choral Review: First time for the STL Chamber Chorus in O’Fallon

This past Sunday (September 29), the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus (SLCC) began its 2024-2025 season in a new venue for them, the Chapel of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood in O’Fallon. Keeping in mind that the SLCC performs in different spaces in each of their season’s concerts, O’Fallon was the farthest out in the general core ‘Central Corridor’ territory that the SLCC has ever ventured, according to SLCC executive director Nancy Burstein. In this context, SLCC artistic director Philip Barnes asked the audience in his pre-performance greeting for a show of hands of people for whom this was their first SLCC concert ever. About 20 hands out of the audience of ~150 went up.

The concert’s theme was “The Sound of Silence”, where the obvious pop culture reference manifested itself at the end of the printed program. The concert began with “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” by the British composer Edward Bairstow (1874-1946), a setting of a 3rd-century Greek/Syriac text (in English translation, of course) originally attributed to St. James the Less. Last performed by the SLCC 27 seasons ago, this was a very effective concert opener, not least with the forte section in the work’s center that showed off the chapel’s acoustic very well.

The next two works contrasted the 20th and the 16th centuries, namely “May Quietness Descend” by the American composer John Schlenck (1936-2015) and “Factum Est Silentium” (“There was silence”) by the Italian composer Costanzo Porta (1529-1601). The Schlenck selection is the third movement from his larger work Invocations: Hymns from the Upanishads, clearly an expression of his devotion to Vedanta, and most recently sung by the SLCC 9 seasons back. Its harmonic style is mellow, quite middle-of-the-road. The Porta selection, in its first SLCC performance here (and the first of the concert’s three “Factum Est Silentium” compositions), fits well with the general style of late Renaissance-era choral music. Costanzo Porta was a new name to me, and it was very enterprising of the SLCC to program this work. In fact, Mr. Barnes noted that no recording of the Porta work exists, contrary to the idea that all musical works of all genres can be found in some sort of recorded format. (One wonders if he has in mind the idea of making the first recording of this work, and other Costanzo Porta works.)

Following this was a work last sung by the SLCC 34 seasons back, “Schweigen” (“Silence”) by the German composer Max Reger (1873-1916), the first number from his op. 39 set of three choral works Drei Chöre. Reger is noted for his thickly Romantic compositional style, and this selection certainly feels rich harmonically. However, the music did not seem overly thick here, again fitting well with the chapel’s acoustic.

The concert’s next paired selections spanned the Channel, so to speak, with “Silence and Music” by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and “Calme des Nuits” (“Calm of the Nights”) by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921). Last sung by the SLCC 7 seasons back, Vaughan Williams wrote his work for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, to a text by his second wife, the poet Ursula Wood, whom he married that same year. Part of the choral collection for the 1953 coronation titled “A Garland for the Queen”, “Silence and Music” bears familiar harmonic slides and fingerprints recognizable to those who know Vaughan Williams’ music. The Saint-Saëns work, last sung by the SLCC 25 seasons ago, made for a striking contrast in its quite restrained style and moderate pace, perhaps most in keeping with the theme of “The Sound of Silence” up to this point in the concert, with just the one sudden volume upsurge at the word “L’éclat” (‘The flash’).

The concert’s first half closed with another pair of works, from contemporary Austria and Germany. The first of these was an SLCC first performance of “Hör in den Klang der Stille” (“Hear the sound of silence”) by the Austrian composer Lorenz Maierhofer (born 1956). To at least this listener, the work was shocking in its diatonic and strophic simplicity. Next was a revisit of a past SLCC commission, “Dum Medium Silentium”, by the German composer Wolfram Buchenberg (born 1962), last performed at the SLCC’s December 2022 Christmas concert. Making the most of the chapel’s acoustic at the close, Mr. Barnes held up his hand after the Buchenberg ended, to let the extended silence sink in.

The second half of the concert featured works all in first SLCC performances. First of these was an arrangement of the spiritual “Hush!” by the African-American musician Stacey V. Gibbs (born 1964 – he/him, BTW). The SLCC sang it well, even if the presentation seemed a tad incongruous, given the overwhelmingly white makeup of the SLCC, with but one African-American singer in the group. The next paired selections continued the string of contemporary composers, with concise works by the program’s two youngest composers. The first of this ‘set’ was the program’s second “Factum Est Silentium” work, by the Anglo-Danish composer Nils Greenhow (born 1989), and the second was “Songs from Silence” by the American composer Elaine Hagenberg (born 1979). Mr. Barnes noted that these composers are themselves singers, in contrast with someone like Reger, who “wrote for voices the same way that he wrote for instruments”. Or, in other words, Mr. Greenhow and Ms. Hagenberg are more “singer-friendly” in comparison to Reger, although both styles can be effective in their ways.

The next selection brought the afternoon’s final “Factum Est Silentium” setting, by the English composer Richard Dering (1580-1630). Presumably born Protestant, when he lived in Italy later on, Dering converted to Roman Catholicism, obviously not a practical career move for getting along in England. Dering thus worked in exile for some years, although he did eventually return in musical service to Henrietta, Queen to Charles I and herself Catholic. In that religious and political context, Mr. Barnes also noted that Dering’s setting of “Factum Est Silentium” is the only such setting by an English composer. This work ended with a surprising light touch.

The final two selections steered things in a wildly different musical direction, in that these were arrangements of popular music. The first was “Enjoy the Silence”, by Martin Gore (born 1961) of the UK rock group Depeche Mode. I admit that I didn’t recognize offhand the tune of the Depeche Mode original. On its own terms, this arrangement by the contemporary American choral composer Eric Whitacre sounded good. One faux pas in the program booklet was that the notes for “Enjoy the Silence” had a picture not of Mr. Gore, but rather of Mr. Whitcare.

By contrast, everyone knew the second popular music selection, Paul Simon’s classic “The Sound of Silence”. Here, SLCC bass Robert Levinson had the unenviable and impossible task of competing with the Simon and Garfunkel original, or at least with collective memory of said original. The arrangement by the British trombonist Dan Wattis helps finesse direct comparison by giving the solo vocal to a bass, in contrast to the higher vocal registers associated with Simon’s and Garfunkel’s own voices. Mr. Levinson did his job well. This purely choral arrangement also removes the instruments, another part of the song’s iconic sound. It is a testament to Mr. Wattis’ skill that one accepts this arrangement in of itself for what it is, as not trying to replicate the classic recording directly. I noticed one detail (which probably no one else bothered about) in the performance, which touches on the question of singing of classical music selections versus more popular music selections, namely the enunciation of the word “tenement” near the song’s conclusion. The SLCC clearly enunciated each of the three syllables of “tenement”, but in a less ‘natural’ manner compared to how Simon and Garfunkel sing it, and how people speak the word conversationally. (This admittedly nit-picky observation has potential ramifications for the SLCC’s next concert in November at the old Sun Theater in Grand Center, of choral arrangements of popular music. We shall see.)

For their encore, the SLCC and Mr. Barnes returned to classical ‘home ground’, with “All silent now” by the British composer Reginald Redman (1892-1972), another new name and new work to me. This made for a fine and poignant close, with a touch of sentimentality to the music and text, but not too much. Mr. Barnes read the text before the chorus sang the work. One can surmise that the mood of the text and the music had resonances for the current situation of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood in O’Fallon, and the future of the chapel itself. The understanding is that the order’s size is declining, and that with this decline, the chapel may one day be laicized, with its future status uncertain. The excellent notes about the chapel by local architecture maven Esley Hamilton in the general SLCC season program mention potential conversion of the chapel into some sort of civic community use. One such speculative use might be as a performing arts space.

If that were to happen, then based on this one experience, that would be a worthwhile application, as the chapel has an excellent acoustic for choral music, for one, with a very fine balance of resonance and clarity. The SLCC and Mr. Barnes evidently enjoyed performing there, and it showed in the strong performance level, well up to their usual standard. While the crowd size of ~150 may not seem large, the chapel’s relatively modest amount of pew space meant that much of it was occupied, with the main pews in front empty but for recording sound equipment, as is standard for the SLCC.

Presumably the distance to O’Fallon for many SLCC regulars reduced somewhat their audience presence, besides competition in Central Corridor the same afternoon from the SLSO at Stifel Theater and the Kingsbury Ensemble at Second Presbyterian Church (I know one SLCC regular who was at the latter). Carpooling is generally a good idea where feasible to SLCC concerts, but was especially so here, and should generally be encouraged. However, new audience faces are a good sign of potential new audience development. The SLCC has its annual Christmas concert scheduled for St. Peters, a few miles east of O’Fallon. It will be interesting to see if any of the O’Fallon first-time SLCC concertgoers go to St. Peters in December, besides the long-standing SLCC audience regulars, and if additional new faces show up in St. Peters. Stay tuned.