review

The Chanticleer male chamber chorus, so esteemed for rendering the pre-Napoleonic sacred music for choirs of men and boys, took on a new tack with an all-contemporary program studded with commissioned world premieres.
Consistent with the new music, it moved to a very modern venue, the TERRA art space next to the Bay Bridge, where the might of an industrial nation was heard throughout the concert as night crews worked on bridge renovation. Unfortunately, that also introduced high-pitched vehicle beepers---very audibly, and in direct conflict with the tuning pitches used by the a cappella ensemble.
Ah, the challenges of modern creativity!

Actually, Chanticleer's challenges were considerably greater, particularly in the half-hour-long choral narrative, "The Wanderer," in which Ezequiel Viñao's complex harmonic language more than tested the mettle (and metal) of the chorus' backbone. The Argentinian composer-pianist had studied with modernists like Babbitt and Messiaen. He produced an intermittently severe dissonant style in six-part counterpoint, aptly reflecting the inner turmoil in the texts. Vinao moved away from modern tonality, often using the interval of a fifth without the intervening mediant of the modern triad. This reflected pre-Renaissance harmonies, and touched as well on music of Josquin, which the composer acknowledged. I also detected stylistic similarities to modern Estonian and Finnish choral works, decidedly more stark than velvety.
The text offers no easy listening, either. These morose old English stories from pre-Norman-Conquest days (now translated to modern English) are long accounts from an old warrior lamenting the passage of time, and the passage of his triumphal days. The Wanderer-narrator is an outcast who "finds a darkened path." Vinao found an excellent musical lingo to convey this world-premiere tale. But take heed that no less professional chorus attempts its tricky unaccompanied harmonies.

Your corner all-male chorus shouldn't bite it off, for sure. Chanticleer has no boys on its roster, but it has that rarest of species, the adult male soprano---three of them, in fact, singing in a range even higher than the baroque countertenor. The current three are accomplished singers. But this genre has a very high turnover rate as voices mature further---and deepen, too. I'd love to see a doctorate-type university research project on the male soprano, past and present, one combining med-school physiology studies with music-department insights.
Chanticleer lives and dies with its fragile complement of male sopranos. And somehow, Music Director Joseph Jennings keeps coming up with new ones (currently, Eric Brenner, Dylan Hostetter, Michael McNeil) as fast as others withdraw.
Composer Robert Kyr of Oregon was also inspired by medieval texts in his brief "In Praise of Music," another commissioned world premiere. But his musical style was far closer to romantic ideals from Britain, with intensity and climactic fortissimos salient.
Two other works had commonality in the production of very different styles for each of the sections---a bold and precarious stroke indeed. The Mexican Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez' "Of Gold" had that in common with Californian Arthur Jarvinen's fragments of "25 Lines for 25 Quires," two pieces in which Chanticleer's impeccable tuning was all too peccable.
Rounding out this extraordinary concert, with choreography for the chorus moving about the art-gallery space, was Steven Stucky's gentle and genteel "Drop, Drop Slow Tears" and Paul Schoenfield's "Four Motets" (rendered in Hebrew, appropriate to the Jewish New Year now unfolding).
The concert heard at TERRA Sept. 22 was the second of four at three venues around the Bay Area. Somehow, an art gallery struck me as an ingenious choice of performance space.
Chanticleer is a San Francisco-based professional chorus now in its 29th season, which currently features tours of 22 states, 80 concerts in all.