Ragazzi Continuo introduces the season

This men’s chorus, founded in 2010, now contains 15 Ragazzi alumni in their 20s and 30s, who’ve gone on to various careers but still gather together to sing unaccompanied. On Sunday, Dec. 2, they were in Palo Alto’s First Presbyterian Church to present “An English Christmas.” This was about an hour, plus intermission, of choice carols and songs for the season.

Not all the music was English. Some pieces were French, Italian or American. But most were English, running from Renaissance days to the recent work of John Tavener. Some were carols, from the traditional “Coventry Carol” to Gustav Holst’s beautiful hymn-like setting of Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter.” Others were songs or ballads. But even the secular songs, like Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More” — a reminder to be mindful of those who are suffering — were spiritual in nature. Only the encore, a cheerful version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” broke the spell.

The toasty seasonal spirit was a highlight of the concert. So was the wide variety of settings and arrangements found by and in some cases written by the choir. There was rich multi-voice harmony, offset with verses for small groups, sometimes as few as two in wide harmonic spacing, with plenty of solos and leads across the choir for voices of all male types, from bass up to falsetto countertenor. Continuo’s own setting of R. R. Terry’s “Myn Liking” was a highlight of solos.”

There were pieces in stark open harmony, like the medieval “Agincourt Carol.” There was elaborate polyphony from the Renaissance composer William Byrd. There was Venetian-style antiphony in Jacob Handl’s “O Beata Trinitas.” There was a mixture of verses in American and British settings of the traditional carol “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” There was a mixture of traditional-style chorale and inventive modern harmonization in John Tavener’s setting of Blake’s poem “The Lamb.” There were dramatic ritornellos in the traditional carol “A Virgin Most Pure.”

Ragazzi Continuo doesn’t have quite the polish of more famous groups like Chanticleer. What it does have is a knack for spreading a great deal of musical variety around in a thematically unified program from experienced and enthusiastic singers. The result was a concert that kept listeners interested in changing sounds without becoming scattered or disintegrated. It was a fine way to introduce the season.