Although he may not be a household name, in the world of choral music, composer Morten Lauridsen is a true celebrity. The Singers brought him to town for a three-day celebration of his art. Two concerts bookend a daylong outreach event that on Friday featured 500 high school singers.
The festival opened Thursday night at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis with a program of Lauridsen's sacred works. The centerpiece was his five-movement "Lux Aeterna," his masterpiece and a work as close to a popular hit as classical music usually gets.
With its roots in medieval chant, it is a supremely accessible work. Its settings of Latin liturgical texts incorporate long transcendent lines and contemporary harmonies that build to an air of profound serenity.
The Singers' artistic director, Matthew Culloton, conducting the Singers and the basilica's Cathedral Choir, balanced a deep-rooted spirituality with high-spirited entertainment. He captured the boisterous canticle "Veni, Sancte Spiritus" and the gentle "Agnus Dei" that proved to be the program's most emotionally and vocally satisfying movement.
The combined voices made for stirring climaxes, but too often that led to muddy sound and unclear diction. The soprano section was particularly effective.
Another of Lauridsen's highly familiar works, "O Magnum Mysterium," captured the wonder of God's grace in the birth of Christ. Cathedral Choir director Teri Larson imbued the hymn with a clear, unhackneyed faith.
The first half featured the Singers performing four early Lauridsen Psalm settings that proved ultimately formulaic. Surprising for an ensemble of this caliber, the chorus was too often out of sync with itself and with organist Christopher Stroh.
That section ended with a version of the "Ave Maria" that was positively luminous in its soaring lines and clarity of performance.
