An Evening With Three Tenors and...

Zachary Wilder, Thomas Thompson, Charles Daniels & Reginald Mobley

Below you will find a long-winded and opinionated account of my witnessing Early Music Vancouver and Pacific Music Works evening of Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 at the Chan Centre on Friday October 23 with the participation of the Vancouver Chamber Choir.

Tantum ergo is the incipit of the last two verses of Pange Lingua, a Medieval Latin hymn written by St Thomas Aquinas c. 1264. The "Genitori Genitoque" and "Procedenti ab utroque" portions are adapted from Adam of St. Victor's Pentecost sequence. Tantum Ergo occurs during veneration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church and other churches that have this devotion.  It is usually sung, though solemn recitation is sometimes done, and permitted.

O salutaris Hostia (Latin, "O Saving Host"), is a section of one of the Eucharistic hymns written by St Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi. He wrote it for the Hour of Lauds in the Divine Office. It is actually the last two stanzas of the hymn Verbum supernum prodiens, and is used for the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The other two hymns written by Aquinas for the Feast contain the famous sections Panis angelicus and Tantum ergo.

Both from the Wikipedia

For those who might not know an incipt literally means in the beginning. Bach Cantatas are named usually for those first two words in the lyrics.

My Latin is not very good but thanks to Spanish and four years at a Roman Catholic boarding school in Austin, I understand most of it. In fact I can burn a bridge here and state that thanks to the recent trend for music of the 17^th century and earlier (and particularly followed by Early Music Vancouver and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra) we are getting more sacred music in Latin and less in German. I love Bach and his cantatas but I am not partial to all that German. There are of course three exceptions. When tenors Charles Daniels, Colin Balzer and baritone Tyler Duncan do sing in German their diction and presence help me understand some of the language.

While I will not be making any friends (and perhaps lose a few) with my above opinion most of my friends might agree with me that rock and roll in its original English tops so-so versions in French and Italian and that in Spanish it is a tad worse but absolutely execrable in German.

So I love Latin. And that is why I loved the Vespers. I will also boast here that before there was glimmer of an idea of the possible birth of Matthew White, Early Music Vancouver Artistic Director and former and stellar countertenor, this lowly amateur was singing Gregorian chant circa 1264 by noted Roman Catholic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas.Take that Luther!

For four years, in the mid 50s yours truly sang, (with fellow boarders) Tantum Ergo and O Salutaris every Sunday evening at Benediction services at St. Edward’s High School in Austin. Of course I was ignorant to the fact that I was singing Gregorian chant and that these services could also have been called Vespers.

Stephen Stubs’ production both as musical director and lute player (a huge chitarrone) included by special request of Matthew White an added choir, the Vancouver Chamber Choir,  to that of the 9 soloists.  The soloists were sopranos  Jolly Greenleaf (a name that makes me smile), Catherine Webster (now a local singer), alto Laura Pudwell (whom I admired some years ago playing Nero in Monteverdi’s L'incoronazione di Poppea), male alto Reginald Mobley (this time around I could not discern if he was wearing his trademark spats), and tenors, Charles Daniels (who has a liking for Vancouver’s craft beer), Zachary Wilder (who shines in more ways that you might think) and Thomas Thompson who replaced, at the last possible moment, an ailing Ross Hauk.

Monteverdi’s Vespers to me is a vehicle for the three tenors. Except for a lovely performance (she got the juicy part) Catherine Webster and a strong performance by the very tall and handsome bass-baritone Douglass Williams (the other bass-baritone Charles Roberts Stephens got no juicy part) these Vespers were about the three tenors. Alas! So little to be heard from my fave countertenor Reginal Mobley.

In a faux-pas it should have been announced before the performance that Thomas Thompson (who arrived on Thursday afternoon via some special rocket from Los Angeles) had replaced Ross Hauk.  Thompson who has lived in Australia and South Africa was the stellar pinch-hitter of the night. He hit a home run in Duo Seraphim. At first in this lovely song about two seraphim angels, Daniels and Wilder stand side by side and sing. Suddenly Thompson rises and joins in. The lyrics are all about the the three persons of the Holy Trinity who, at the same time are one nature, that of God.

Two angels called to one another
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth!
The earth is full of your glory.
There are three who give testimony in heaven,
Father, Word, and Holy Spirit,
and these Three are One.
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord god of Sabaoth!
The earth is full of your glory.

St. Augustine, who famously agonized over his failed understanding of the Holy Trinity would have smiled at this performance. 

Stephen Stubbs had other tricks in mind, too. This was to explore the architectural makeup of the Vespers that may have been composed to fit in and work with the echo and reverberation of a cathedral. The Chan is no cathedral so the trick was to have one of the tenors (Wilder and Daniels alternated on this) sing up in the rafters of the Chan in echo.

In the magnificent closing Magnificat the two cornettists Bruce Dickey and Kiri Tollaksen also performed an echo effect. Tollaksen pulled a Miles Davis by playing her instrument with her back to the audience while Dickey did so full frontal. This was superb.

I have one beef and it is about the almost in the beginning Nigra Sum:

I am black but comely, O daughters of Jerusalem,

Therefore the king loved me and brought me into his chamber.

And he said tome: Rise up, my love and come away.

See! The winter is past, the rains are over and gone,

Flowers appear in our land, and now is the time of reckoning.

Song of Solomon, 1:4-5 2:10 -12

I can safely surmise that the singer is the Queen of Sheba. When I asked Stubbs about this he said the part was for the tenor.

Had I had my say male alto Reginald Mobley should have been the man to sing this. But I must be clear that the Daniels version of Nigra Sum was personal in an iconic way and that no other tenor could possibly match. Of all the tenors I have heard these years it is Daniels who not only is a singer but an actor too.  Zachary Wilder was a good foil to Daniels the whole evening. I would use one word to describe Wilder, he is electrifying. And let’s hear more of that pinch-hitter Thomas Thompson.