It was a treat to see the San Diego Master Chorale take center stage in its concert Sunday (Oct. 12) night at La Jolla Presbyterian Church. It’s not that local audiences are unaccustomed to seeing the 120-voice choir stage center—it’s just that usually they are shoe-horned behind the San Diego Symphony on the stage of Copley Hall in their customary supporting role, belting out the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth or singing carols and “Messiah” excerpts at December holiday extravaganzas.

Sunday’s concert was not only the Chorale’s chance to be heard on its own terms, but also an occasion to get a clearer picture of Music Director Gary McKercher’s vision for this established local ensemble. His eclectic La Jolla program attempted to cover many musical styles and genres, although at least one larger work would have anchored the concert and helped focus it. This meal was a buffet of warm and chilled appetizers.

Stronger ensemble discipline and more articulate phrasing are two virtues McKercher has cultivated since he arrived two years ago, and these contributed to the Chorale’s successful opening salvo, the “Dixit Dominus” from Mozart’s “Solemn Vespers,” K. 339. McKercher sculpted the myriad details of Mozart’s elegant treatment of the text without sacrificing any of the momentum that propels this piece. Accompanist Brian Verhoye delivered the piano reduction of the orchestra score with his usual panache and assertive ornamentation. A case can be made that playing the keyboard reduction of a Mozart orchestral score is a more demanding task than essaying one of his piano concertos.

An important gauge of a choir’s caliber is how well it sings without accompaniment, and here again MeKercher scores high marks. Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Three Shakespeare Songs” requires immaculate tuning and a delicate balance among the many divided sections, especially the impressionistic “The Cloud Capp’d Towers.” This short set provided some of the evening’s most rewarding moments, with a warm, ingratiating timbre, clearly projected texts and a deliciously soaring soprano line that was most kind on the ears. Another a cappella gem, Emile Paladilhe's "Benedictus," had similar warmth and breadth. A favorite selection of Midwestern college choral directors of the old school, this liturgical selection shamelessly indulges in the sinuous melodies and lavender harmonies of late 19th-century Parisian opera, but of course the sober American Protestants who performed this music knew nothing of such borrowings. Assistant Conductor Martin Green sang the tenor solo with a firm, ingratiating sonority, but soprano Sharon Davis was another story entirely. Her bright, incisive dramatic soprano is just what a director wants to cut through a large, dense orchestral accompaniment, but it was grating and quite overpowering in this context.

The studied counterpoint and declamatory flourishes of Felix Mendelssohn's rarely performed "Why Rage Fiercely the Heathen?", a Psalm setting for double choir, gave the Chorale opportunity to flaunt its muscle. As effective as this psalm motet sounded, I imagine it would have been even better in a larger room where the divided choruses could display their antiphonal volleys with greater contrast. Tightly packed together in the La Jolla Presbyterian chancel, the interplay of the divided choirs was not as evident. I am imagining this motet sung in antiphonal splendor from opposing galleries in a large German city church.

On the lighter side, a group of 30 singers from the Chorale indulged the humor and playfulness of one of Gioacchino Rossini's "Sins of Old Age" (yes, this is how he entitled his late choral collection), "I Gondolieri." The song title sounds like a long-lost Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, but it is an ode to the "idyllic" life of a gondolier plying the canals and lagoons of Venice. If the tenors had more than their share of soaring gondolier calls, they handled them with clarion security. A six-voice ensemble, including McKercher as one of the tenors, sang Paul Patterson's "Time Piece," a contemporary, Dadaist vocal feat that interlaces mechanical clock sounds, nonsense syllables, and allusions to the first couple in Genesis, Chapter 1. Designed to impress listeners with difficult harmonies and intervals, as well as surprising poetic twists, it may be too clever for its own good. But it was carried off with the precision of, well, a Swiss-made time piece.

The Chorale closed its program with three spirituals, including a particularly rousing version of Jester Hairston's "Hold On," an appropriate anthem for this setting, inasmuch as Hairston made several appearances as a guest choral conductor on the concert series of La Jolla Presbyterian before his demise in 2000. Alice Parker's soulful arrangement of "Sometimes I Feel" featured a persuasive, impassioned solo by alto Kay-Marie Moreno.

From this solo concert, it is clear that McKercher has revitalized the San Diego Master Chorale and raised its performance standards. We can hope that he has not finished his choral refurbishing. This program will be presented again at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 19, at the First United Methodist Church of Chula Vista.

MASTER CHORALE.pdf