{"id":5447,"date":"2013-11-20T11:09:56","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T08:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/2013\/11\/in-pursuit-of-beauty-2\/"},"modified":"2013-11-20T11:09:56","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T08:09:56","slug":"in-pursuit-of-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/2013\/11\/in-pursuit-of-beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"In Pursuit of Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON<\/strong>, November 20, 2013 \u2013 From the very first chord, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir revealed itself as a quietly confident, masterful ensemble. Surely the highlight of this year\u2019s Georgetown Concert Series, this Grammy Award-winning choir clearly demonstrated why they are held in such high esteem in the choral world, not to mention why they are Estonian composer Arvo P\u00e4rt\u2019s favorite choral ensemble.<\/p>\n

While the choir is known primarily for their luminous P\u00e4rt interpretations, the first half of Wednesday night\u2019s program consisted of music by Rudolf Tobias and Johannes Brahms. Beginning with the latter\u2019s \u201cWarum ist da Licht gegeben den M\u00fchseligen?\u201d (\u201cWherefore hath the light been given to a heart sorrowful?\u201d) (Op. 74), maestro Daniel Reuss (who conducted with tuning fork in hand) moved the ensemble efficiently through an authoritative performance, taking such brief pauses between movements to make the pieces flow neatly together.<\/p>\n

A wonderfully human moment occurred in the midst of the three short but highly challenging Tobias pieces that followed the Brahms when the choir momentarily collapsed during a \u201cfalse start\u201d of sorts. Reuss turned to the audience with a half bow of apology, rebooted his choir, and proceeded by leading yet another almost flawless performance. This impressive recovery was received with delight by what already was clearly a partisan crowd.<\/p>\n

The choir returned to its musical home in the second half of the program, beginning with Arvo P\u00e4rt\u2019s \u201cTwo Slavonic Psalms.\u201d It was in P\u00e4rt\u2019s notoriously difficult-to-sing compositions that this group truly demonstrated their interpretative expertise, handling the composer\u2019s difficult leaps, exposed lines, and demanding harmonic mutations with seeming ease. All that was left was to enjoy a riveting encounter with beauty, knowing that one was experiencing P\u00e4rt\u2019s music as the composer himself would surely intend.<\/p>\n

Reuss let the \u201cTwo Slavonic Psalms\u201d flow almost immediately into Alfred Schnittke\u2019s \u201cThe Sacred Hymns.\u201d While programmatically disorienting, one wonders if this was by design, as Schnittke\u2019s language can be highly complimentary to P\u00e4rt\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Coming from a Soviet-era composer who wrote relatively little choral music, Schnittke\u2019s neutrally named works of sacred music leave one to wonder as to the composer\u2019s religious intent. Certainly the boss of the Communist Composers\u2019 Union during Schnittke\u2019s time was not amused, using Schnittke\u2019s suspected western attitudes and religious ideas as pretext to ban the composer from traveling.<\/p>\n

Sung here in a beautiful American church and book-ended by the obviously religious music of P\u00e4rt, this might have been a bit of a spiritual rehabilitation for the late Russian\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

The obvious highlight of the evening was certainly Arvo P\u00e4rt\u2019s \u201cMagnificat,\u201d which the Estonian singers presented with both practiced ease and reverence. This is one of those works which \u2013 when sung with expertise and conviction \u2013 seem capable of visibly shimmering the very air around the listener, which was very nearly the effect of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir\u2019s sublime performance.<\/p>\n

If there was one regret to the evening, it was the fact that the choir sang in such a small, acoustically dry space. Even so, the choir is to be commended for having adjusted so well to this less than ideal acoustic situation. Nonetheless, St. John\u2019s and the parish\u2019s Georgetown Concert Series are deserving of praise for bringing such a world-class choral ensemble to Washington.<\/p>\n

Finally, if you missed this special night, don\u2019t fret: the choir will return to Washington in May 2014 with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, to perform an all P\u00e4rt program at the Kennedy Center with the composer in attendance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

http:\/\/communities.washingtontimes.com\/neighborhood\/pursuit-beauty\/2013\/nov\/20\/concert-review-estonian-philharmonic-chamber-choir\/#ixzz2lDLoxdZs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, November 20, 2013 \u2013 From the very first chord, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir revealed itself as a quietly confident, masterful ensemble. Surely the highlight of this year\u2019s Georgetown Concert Series, this Grammy Award-winning choir clearly demonstrated why they are held in such high esteem in the choral world, not to mention why they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}