Milwaukee Symphony Chorus’ Moving ‘In Memoriam’

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus (MSC), the premier choralgroup in a choral town, is rarely heard without orchestra. That opportunityarose in a pair of concerts last weekend at St. Anthony Church, at Ninth Street andMitchell. Another of the city’s distinguished church interiors, its acousticsare wonderfully flattering to choral music. In this environment, unaccompaniedor accompanied by organ or harp, the sound was markedly richer than whatis heard with orchestra in the much drier acoustics of Uihlein Hall.

Good compositions by local composers were featuredamong 22 works, including those by chorus members. Joel K. Boyd’s “Thou WouldstBe Loved,” with harp, is brief but shows promise. Timothy J. Benson’s “The GoodShepherd,” with flutes and organ, is both dramatic and pastoral. MSC conductorLee Erickson’s arrangement of “Now Thank We All Our God” is contrapuntally andharmonically interesting. Another local composer, Joseph A. Kucharski, was representedwith “Agnus Dei for a Requiem.” 

Titled “In Memoriam,” the concert was tribute to twolongtime chorus members who died last year. The shock of Elisabeth Witte’smurder by her ex-husband after a concert unimaginably shook the classicalcommunity in Milwaukee.Chorus member Gela Sawall Ashcroft’s “Freude,” in a style that mixesneo-Baroque and part-song, recalls Elisabeth’s sunny personality.

The balance of the concert was primarily sacred andin Anglican style, with a few nods to Lutheran and other choraltraditions. There were many moving moments when the music swelled fromquietness to overwhelming, majestic fullness. Particularly effective wereRachmaninoff’s “Rejoice, O Virgin,” F. Melius Christiansen’s “Praise tothe Lord,” L.L. Fleming’s setting of “Give Me Jesus,” “O Nata Lux” by MortenLauridsen, and John Tavener’s “Song for Athene.” My only substantial criticismis that the concert felt long on Saturday evening, a danger in a parade ofshort works.

On Friday evening I caught a UW-Milwaukee facultyrecital by two of our city’s best, flutist Caen Thomason-Redus and guitaristRené Izquierdo. The program included impressive accounts of Joan Tower’sSnow Dreams,transcriptions of Bartok’s RomanianFolk Dances,and sophisticatedLatin American sauciness in music by Celso Machado and Maximo Diego Pujol.