concert review: Chora Nova

[calimac]

It's been 3 years since I've heard this chorus which sings unusual repertoire in Berkeley, and I think they used to be of higher technical quality than in today's program of a Bruckner mass and a small bouquet of his motets. But maybe it was the repertoire, since the old Chora Nova was back for the final work, Brahms' Gesang der Parzen. That was the best of the program.

The Bruckner works were all Catholic pieces in Latin, appropriate for a church setting, albeit a Congregational Church, and were all accompanied, if at all, by an organ and/or wind and brass, oddly enough. The Brahms is pagan and in German, and is with orchestra, here inadequately impersonated by a piano. (The pianist was fine; it's reducing Brahmsian orchestration to piano-size that was the problem.)

Dinner afterwards enabled me to write a Yelp restaurant review with the word "homeopathic" in it, as in "The salad was supposed to have dressing on it. If so, it was present in only homeopathic quantity."

Comments

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm no longer in Chora Nova, which may have had some effect on the quality of the altos. But what you heard is typical. I attended one program of CN's a couple of years back, of Handel and Hummel, and it was like hearing different choruses in the two halves. I am sure it was a rehearsal time issue.