REVIEW: Pasadena Symphony — Verdi's Requiem

By John Farrell
Music Critic

Save the biggest for last. That was the recipe for Saturday’s Pasadena Symphony Orchestra concert, the last one in the orchestra’s 2007-2008.

If you hadn’t read the program, which announced a performance of Verdi’s Requiem as the final work on the annual schedule, you could still tell, as you were taking your seat, that it was going to be a night of big sounds. Eight bass fiddles leaned against the concert shell on the left. The chairs for the musicians were crowded right up to the edge of the stage, and there was a choir rank in the back that would eventually fill up with more than 100 singers, so many that when they stood to sing the also spread out across he back of the stage: They needed extra room to breathe.

Maestro Jorge Mester and his augmented orchestra were joined by the voices of the Occidental Chorale, which now regularly collaborates with the PSO. Four vocal soloists — soprano Kelley Nassief, mezzo soprano Carmella Jones, tenor Stuart Neill and bass-baritone Nmon Ford — completed the musical army gathered to present a work of great passion, emotional depth and sheer power. (It is claimed that one passage in the work is the loudest outside of amplified music. Could be.)

Verdi’ setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass, called the Requiem, almost didn’t happen. Originally Verdi wrote just one movement for a requiem that was in honor of composer Gioacchino Rossini, with other movements written by other contemporary composers. That work was performed, finally, over 100 years later. Verdi still wanted to write a requiem, and finished this one, using an adaptation of the one movement he had already written, to honor Italian novelist and poet Allessandro Manzoni.

Verdi was at the height of his operatic powers when he wrote the Requiem, (he began working on it after the opera Aida) and it certainly has operatic emotions, from the fearful Dies Irae to a section that used an aria that had been dropped from Verdi’s opera Don Carlo. The requiem is, of course, about death, but Verdi made it also a celebration of life. It is often larger and very noisy, but it begins with a whisper and the complexities of the work can be astonishing.

Mester was continually conscious of those contrasts, and always in full control of his musical voices, signaling for power and for delicate softness, controlling vibrato and balancing the big voice of the chorus, the soloists and the orchestra. The work calls for trumpets to be heard around the hall, and Mester had the players arrayed along the sides of the upper balcony for an electrifying and dramatic effect.

Big voices were called for and biggest was tenor Neill, whose power easily filled the hall. Mezzo soprano Jones had a dark and rich voice that was never overwhelmed by Verdi’s complex requirements. Soprano Nassief in one solo passage was shimmering, and bass-baritone Ford, who has often sung with the Pasadena Pops, the PSO’s new partner, was deeply convincing. Together, in duos, trios and quartets, they made a well-balanced team. In the final Libera Me, (the movement Verdi wrote for the original project, and revised for this one) they contributed mightily to the moving finale.

This was the second time that the Verdi Requiem as been heard locally. Last fall, it was performed by Los Angeles Opera as a tribute to both Luciano Pavarotti and Edgar Baetzel. If memory serves, Saturday’s version was more lyric, more dramatic and altogether more satisfying.

Hemidemisemiquaver:

The PSO usually features an open dress rehearsal of their Saturday night concert the same morning at the Civic. This time around the advertised the same and were charging $10 for tickets, but the rehearsal was rescheduled and the ads kept running, meaning that a good number of music lovers made their way to Pasadena only to find the event cancelled. Certainly it was in inadvertent oversight, but it made the orchestra no friends.

FOLLOWUP NOTE FROM BOB THOMAS The rehearsal was cancelled because Jorge Mester felt that everything was ready to go by Friday night and, thus, an additional rehearsal wasn't needed (I don't think I've ever heard a conductor make that statement). Those who came Saturday morning were invited to attend the concert at the $10 ticket price, instead.
____________________

John Farrell is a freelance music critic based in Long Beach.
____________________

(c) Copyright 2008, John Farrell. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.