David Hoose and the Cantata Singers returned to their earliest roots with a program of devotional music that included motets by Bach and Schütz and the world premiere of John Harbison’s But Mary Stood: Sacred Symphony for Soprano, Chorus, and Strings. Harbison, a former music director of the Cantata Singers, won his Pulitzer Prize in 1986 with an earlier Cantata Singers commission, The Flight into Egypt. They’ll be played in tandem on January 19, 2007.
Harbison’s harmonically dark Prelude for questioning-and-answering strings (or is it statement-and-questioning?) is followed by two choral motets on texts his late mother and 103-year-old mother-in-law requested for their memorials: the “through a glass, darkly, . . . faith, hope, charity” passage from 1 Corinthians (you can “hear” that mirror fogging up) and the “in my father’s house are many mansions” verses from John (with intricately interweaving polyphonic lines). The complex third section depicts Mary Magdalene standing and weeping at the sepulcher of Jesus, the tears reflected in Harbison’s austere lamentation. Soprano Karyl Ryczek was the expressive narrator and voice of Mary; the superb chorus (superb throughout the concert) was the voice of Jesus. Violinists Daniel Stepner and Lena Wong and violist Anne Black joined continuo players Beth Pearson (cello), Susan Hagen (bass), and Michael Beattie (organ). Hoose led with decisive precision and heartfelt restraint.
You could hear Harbison’s ancestors in the exquisite lullaby chorale (“Good night, Existence, . . . Sins, . . . Pride”) from Bach’s great Jesu, meine Freude (“Jesus, My Joy”) and the heartbreaking parental dialogue in Schütz’s Mein Sohn, warum hast du uns das getan? (“My Son, Why Have You Done This to Us?”). The uninhibited celebration of Bach’s Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden (“Praise the Lord, All Nations”) made a great finish but seemed beyond Harbison’s more ambiguous view of human and spiritual likelihoods.
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