Mt. Sinai: Frontier of Byzantium and Smorgasbord

[January 17th, 2007] The Portland-based Cappella Romana is a globetrotting chamber choir that asks a lot of itself and its audiences. Its members wear black on black, program meaty concerts and appear highly somber while performing. Its current serious intentions were heard in Mt. Sinai: Frontier of Byzantium on Friday at St. Mary's Cathedral.

In chants from the 13th through 15th centuries, the nine men of Cappella, including music director Alexander Lingas, delivered supremely controlled, finely blended ensemble singing. In The Service of the Furnace, an early liturgical drama, Cappella's satisfyingly reedy tenors played youths on the pyre (John Michael Boyer's plangent solo singing a highlight) saved by an angel from above. The vocal lines arch marvelously high in dramatic passages, and basses often drone for perilously long periods—each singer was up to the task.

Much of this music was composed for use in church settings, where chant helps to focus and frame the experience. Stripped of that context, it runs the danger of becoming derivative, or dressing. Or simply beside the point.

The music was the point—mostly—in the Oregon Symphony's ear-opening Smorgasbord concert heard Sunday at the Schnitz with Carlos Kalmar on the podium. The unquestionably hot highlight was the appearance of percussionist Colin Currie.

Still shy of his 30th birthday, Currie has an awful lot of assets, some of which were packed into a tight red shirt and snug trousers. He's no slouch behind a drumset, either, and American composer Christopher Rouse's Alberich Saved for Percussion and Orchestra was an ideal vehicle for his talents.

Following a tepid performance of Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question (from 1906), Rouse's piece (from 1997) could well have been subtitled The Unquestioned Answer because of the similar languages each composer spoke at different ends of the 20th century.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 got a mad workout from Kalmar and company, which included guest concertmaster Karen Johnson, a candidate for the full-time first violin pole position. Johnson led ably, but the most eloquent solos came from Symphony regulars: David Buck, flute; Martin Hebert, oboe; and Yoshinori Nakao, clarinet.

—STEPHEN MARC BEAUDOIN