This year marks the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra's 50th anniversary season. To get it off to a festive start, SPCO performed Handel's celebratory "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day." (Cecilia is the patroness of music.) The orchestra juxtaposed it with a compelling contemporary work, "Seven Last Words From the Cross" by Scottish composer James MacMillan.
If the results Friday night at the Ordway were not as convivial as one might have wished, the return of Dale Warland as artistic director of the SPCO Anniversary Chorale was most welcome.
MacMillan's cantata, scored for chorus and strings, is a theatrical work of profound faith. His devout Catholicism gives the setting of the traditional biblical passages, juxtaposed with other liturgical texts, added drama and resonance.
For much of it, the singers and instruments seemed to inhabit two different aural worlds. There were dense layers of sound, but MacMillan, who speaks of himself as "stand[ing] against the old guard of the avant-garde," found real expressiveness in tonality.
There were some dry patches, where the work seemed extended beyond its inspiration. But the fault might have been with artistic partner Douglas Boyd. He is a real champion of MacMillan's work, and his reading felt overly reverential.
This work was right up Warland's alley, and his chorus gave a fine performance. They demonstrated a clear, crystalline sound and a passionate enunciation of the text.
The Handel performance was less distinguished. The reading was heavy-handed, lacking the elegance and delicacy of an ideal rendition. The work relied on soprano and tenor soloists who only approximated the demands of the work.
Claire Ormshaw had a warm lyric soprano, but it had the distracting habit of turning shrill at the top. And in struggling to put the words across, she often distorted the vocal line. But she had a serviceable trill and delivered a committed performance.
