Bernstein In the Garage

About a year ago, director Dan Perkins of the New Hampshire Master Chorale, was returning to his car in the Capitol Commons parking garage in Concord, singing with some of his friends. Suddenly he stopped and said, “These acoustics are amazing. We should do a concert in here.” On June 21, 2014, that’s what they did. The Summer Solstice event was sponsored by Red River Theatres, which added an outdoor screening and sing-along of West Side Story to coordinate with the main feature of the concert, Mass by Leonard Bernstein.

Before the Bernstein, there were two modern choral works. Nico Muhly’s Expecting the Main Things From You, set to lyrics by Walt Whitman, was, I’ll confess, not easy to listen to. The performances were wonderful, but the piece belongs to that school of academic composition that produces works about which the most complimentary thing an honest listener can say is that they’re interesting. It was truly interesting and well-suited to the unique resonance of the space, but it also taxed my attention span.

Jonathan Santore’s world premiere of Solstices, therefore, came as a breath of air. Professor Santore is the Chorale’s Composer in Residence, and the piece was written especially for this event. (How many composers can say they debuted a new work in a parking garage? How many would want to?) Perkins had asked for a piece that would complement the Bernstein, and Santore met this request brilliantly, employing a Bernstein-like use of striking motifs and canon effects while creating a highly original work of astonishing beauty. Emily Jaworski’s mezzo-soprano carried Santore’s sweetly haunting melodies into the garage space with a sparkle that was breathtaking.

When Mark Yasewicz invited me to this performance, I told him I would help get the word out through social media. I did my best, but in order to promote a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, you have to be able to describe it. This is not easy. Mass is not a mass, though it uses the Latin lyrics and the outline of a Christian liturgy. In its original form, the composer described it as “a theatre piece for singers, players and dancers,” which is as accurate as it is unhelpful. Early in the piece, a tenor exhorts us to “Sing God a simple song,” but what follows is anything but simple. Too sacred to be called a musical, too irreverent to be an oratorio, much too long for performance art, it was produced for the dedication of the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 1971 and immediately condemned by the local archbishop. The critics didn’t know what to make of it.

I first listened to the recording as an assignment for my Introduction to Theatre course at an Evangelical college in the Midwest. Half of my classmates hated it because it was “too Catholic,” the other half because they found it blasphemous. I thought it was the most exciting musical entity to enter my ears since my first Bach concerto grosso (when I was seven). I copied the library’s LP onto a cassette which I played until it wore out, storing the Stephen Schwartz lyrics in my memory as prayers.

Rather than attempting to recruit a dance troupe, choreographer, boys’ choir and complete stage crew—or making the audience sit through the entire two hours in folding chairs—the Chorale used an abridged concert arrangement by Doreen Rao. This version is, of course, edited for length. Unfortunately, it also leaves out much of the most controversial material and thus quite a few of my favorite bits. I was afraid I’d be disappointed, but when the singers came in at the end of the intermission, the Kyrie rising from a dozen different points in the midst of the still-chatting crowd, the effect was magical. The acoustics of the parking garage perfectly complemented Bernstein’s rhythmic echo effects, and the voices just popped. The instrumental ensemble, much smaller than the composer’s original vision, was spare enough to highlight the diverse sounds from flute solo to drum kit.

After hearing beloved melodies live for the first time and not being able to sing along, I was primed for West Side Story. I had to sing. I’d have been singing in the streets all the way home. Bernstein has a way with intervals, at once surprising and exactly right, that leaves you craving more. His rhythms get under your skin. I need to find a replacement for that worn-out cassette now. iTunes to the rescue?