
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 12, 1990                   TAG: 9003122744
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CHOIR GIVES SMOOTH PERFORMANCE

Stan Baker and the Bach Choir gave the second of their two spring concerts Sunday afternoon in the magnificent acoustics of St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church in Roanoke. An audience of about 150 heard a short program with works from such composers as William Byrd and Edvard Grieg.

This ensemble's trademark since its founding by Donald Moe has been a lush, smooth blend of voices.

That blend was enhanced on Sunday by the remarkably live acoustics and lengthy decay time of the church's large nave, which Baker and his singers exploited especially well in their first piece.

This was a setting of the "Ave Verum Corpus" by the English Roman Catholic composer William Byrd. Sung with a cool straight tone, it was as nearly flawless a performance of this masterpiece as one could have hoped to hear in Roanoke, with Byrd's magnificent polyphonic lines building a kind of aural cathedral in the air.

Baker, who is a product of Westminster Choir College, has shown a fondness for exhibiting two settings of the same text in a single concert. The second piece was another version of the "Ave Verum Corpus," this time the far more familiar one by Mozart. This setting, with organ accompaniment, was successful.

Next came a piece by America's premiere choral composer, Randall Thompson. His setting of a short, eight-line Pentecost poem by Joseph Beaumont was titled "The Eternal Dove," and its dry harmonies contrasted pleasantly with the Mozart.

Premiered 20 years ago, the work builds to a lengthy climax on the words "sing hallelujah."

The first half of the concert ended with Handel's "Coronation Anthem No. 4," which first was heard in 1727.

The mood of this tri-partite piece was appropriately celebratory, but the organ registration was not completely successful in the middle larghetto section.

The softer of the two main voices was so quiet as to be difficult to hear, at least toward the middle of the nave. But the Bach Choir's ensemble and diction was impressive in this piece, with the words "Justice, judgment, mercy, truth" sounding as if they proceeded from the throat of a single musical organism.

Baker's tenure with the Bach Choir has been marked by a number of excellent though rather obscure pieces. In this category fell the work that occupied the second half of this concert, the "Four Psalms," Op. 74, of Edvard Grieg.

by CNB