The American Record Guide - January/February 2006
IMMAGINOSA: American inspiration and the modern madrigal
Philip Greenfield
To the Greeks, esoteric meant a tight community as well as the rarefied body of knowledge shared by its members. From the sound of things here, this 36-voice choir from Seattle does indeed constitute a close-knit community, so collegial and loving is the music-making on display. These young, spirited singers put this challenging repertoire across as though there’s nothing else in the world they’d rather be doing. Voices are bright and clear yet fully under control, balances have been expertly crafted by Maestro Banks (a Yalie by way of the University of Washington), and the emotional zing of the enterprise is compelling at every turn. The only quibble I have is diction, which loses some of its punch in the reverberant setting of West Seattle’s Holy Rosary Catholic Church: a fair number of consonants head up into the ecclesiastical ether and are never heard from again. The conductor and engineers might want to put their heads together on that one for next time. In the meantime, keep the handsomely designed booklet close by for full access to the poetry.
As the title suggests, Renaissance sensibilities were alive and well through the 20th century and are still kicking here in the 21st. (Donald Skirvin’s four Alchemy songs, on poems by Sara Teasdale, date from 2002.) The hour-glass, a group of six Ben Jonson meditations on the joys and pitfalls of love, is a welcome reminder of the immense gifts of Irving Fine, who died way too young back in 1962. (He was only 48.) William Hawley’s Reveries also are superb, while Elliott Carter contributes a moving realization of Emily Dickinson’s Heart not so heavy as mine, and a bustling Musicians wrestle everywhere also inspired by the Belle of Amherst. There are no dead spots (with these singers, nothing could stay dead for long, anyway); so the music can be recommended as enthusiastically as the singing. This and Chicago a cappella’s “Shall I compare thee?” (also this issue) are the most engaging choral anthologies I came across in 2005.