Masterworks Chorale makes statement of peace

Like Bernstein’s, Jenkins’ mass is loosely built on the structure of a Catholic mass. It begins with a setting of the titular French folk song, which had been used in the Renaissance as a cantus firmus, a melodic framework, for liturgical masses. Jenkins uses this with many other textual additions to the missal text to serve as commentary, ranging from poems by Kipling, Dryden and Tennyson to excerpts from the Book of Psalms and the Mahabharata.

His musical language is post-minimalist. It’s tonal and melodic, using dissonance as punctuation rather than continuous flavoring, with strong emotions poured into a fixed structure rather than being shaped by development. The mass has 13 movements, divided into two equal sections. In the first half, depicting the lead-up to and the waging of war, simple patterns build up, achieving their effect by repetition at increased intensity. This is most striking in the Sanctus, where a rigid and sinister sound belies the gentle Latin text. The second half depicts both mourning and the hope for peace. Here, monotonic hushed chants are punctuated with eruptions based on the meaning of the words.

The varying moods and styles of the movements work well up until the finale, which jars in juxtaposing celebration with earnest hope. Saccharine images (love balloons, puppies and kittens) on the video that played throughout the piece didn’t help.

Performance quality was excellent, from the chorus, rich throughout its various sections, to soprano soloist Megan Anderson in a mourning movement and boy soprano Brenn Farrell in the kyrie and notably in the small chamber orchestra. Special note should go to the two trumpeters, Carole Klein and Jim Rodseth, who played a major role throughout, having to depict the sinister, the martial, the funereal and the more generally mournful at various points.

The concert was led with skill by Masterworks assistant conductor Erin Moore, who stepped in when artistic director Bryan Baker had to withdraw on a recent illness, after having planned and prepared for this program literally for years. At least he was well enough by now that he could come and hear it performed.

At 70 minutes, “The Armed Man” is not quite long enough to fill a concert by itself, so it was supplemented with a half-hour opening act of three works. Two of these were mass movements played unaccompanied: a kyrie by the Renaissance church composer Palestrina using the “Armed Man” folk song as its cantus firmus and an agnus dei set by modern American composer Samuel Barber using the music of his famously mournful Adagio for Strings.

The third piece, “We Can Mend the Sky” by the American composer Jake Runestad, sets a poem by an adolescent Somali immigrant to the United States. The musical style differs from that of Jenkins, being stark and declamatory and using chaotic choral passages. But there’s some similarity of spirit as Runestad employs dissonance and consonance as expressive devices and instrumentation (in this case lower and higher pitched drums) to underline the moods.

A multiply-repeated final phrase in the Runestad failed to express the hopefulness that the creators intended. Moore turned around to try to get the audience to join in, but without much success. This concert showed that music can convey the anguish and sorrow of our past and present, but a more cheerful future is still a long way off.

Masterworks’ next concert will be an all-British festival on May 19 and 20, also in Redwood City.