You can take liturgical music out of church, but ultimately you cannot take the church out of liturgical music.  The very purpose of music written for the worship service is to impart sacred words through the powerful means provided by the music; the text, therefore, must be clear, and if it is not, then its basic function in a service is lost.  First up was Nico Muhly’s Bright Mass with Canons, written in 2005 for John Scott and the boys’ and men’s choir of St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, and set to the propers of the Mass, sans Credo.  The Mass was written around various forms of a compositional technique used through the centuries, the canon.  Canons provide a sort of skeleton into which musical themes are woven, in this case keeping singers and conductors amused with how cleverly the device is employed. 

Contemporary composers too often relish the opportunity to savage the ear in a total repudiation of tonality that has formed musical sensibilities for thousands of years.  But they have their fans, and as cutting-edge composers forever, deserve to have their works heard.  A canon is traditionally considered clever if the structure itself cannot easily be discerned.  Mr. Muhly’s use of the canon throughout Bright Mass was certainly not discernable, but more importantly, neither were the texts.

The Walt Disney Hall organ was also brought into use in service of providing another textless voice, skillfully played by Kimo Smith, a highly-regarded and well-established Southern California organist making a belated debut in Disney Hall.

A delight, by contrast, was Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur’s Le cantique des cantiques (The Song of Songs) with texts taken from Solomon’s Old Testament’s erotica, which some scholars believe was meant to be a metaphor for God’s love for his chosen people, Israel.  M. Daniel-Lesur was a friend of Olivier Messiaen, with whom Daniel-Lesur co-founded La Jeune France, a counterbalance of four composers who sought to steer trendy writers away from the impersonal, abstract compositions en vogue in the mid-1930s.

It is obvious from Le cantique des cantiques that the composer had a clear understanding of the choral instrument for which he so successfully wrote, skillfully setting the Songs for twelve-part and semi-chorus.  This is a little-known and little-appreciated composer whose music deserves the eminent talents of an ensemble as illustrious as the Master Chorale.

After intermission, it was Mr. Muhly’s First Service (2004), the traditional evening service of the Anglican tradition, which in contrast to his Bright Mass with Canons kept the text important, with brilliant settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittas, with pipe organ employed with dramatic effect.

A brief service response, Confirma hoc Deus (1997) by English composer Tarik O’Regan. revealed a composer intimately aware of choral potential and written while a student at Oxford.  The organ plays an important part in the responsorial sequence.

The final spot on the evening’s programme was reserved for the most conservative work, Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir (1920s) … avec Credo.  Within his own family, Martin faced a contradiction inasmuch as his parents were devout Calvinist, while his work took the traditional Roman Catholic service form.  His solution was to withhold the work from public performance until 1953, and characterized the Mass as a personal statement of faith.

The music itself is glorious when sung by a superb choir.  Master Chorale audiences have come to expect the glorious, and with Maestro Gershon at the podium, always get it, and more – exposure to a universe of choral expression from all ages and cultures, and although most seats in Disney Hall are filled, limited only by financial resources.  One hopes that the administration’s proposal to eliminate charitable contributions from tax deductibility fails to pass Congress.  One cannot even think of life in LA without the magnificent Master Chorale.