A large, appreciative crowd came out to the National Cathedral Sunday afternoon for a joint program by the Cathedral Choral Society and the Heritage Signature Chorale entitled A Service of Honor: A Black Composers Retrospective.  I’m not sure “retrospective” would be the right term since most of the works, including the principal offering, were by living composers, and none were from earlier than the mid-20th century. But while the stylistic range was narrow, the expressive range was vast, and the combined choirs under Stanley Thurston produced grandiose, full-throated sounds.    

It's difficult to say more about the performance per se since the cavernous Cathedral is such an acoustical nightmare; a short, sharp sound can still be heard seven seconds after it is made, so just imagine a loud passage of dense counterpoint, with organ and percussion along with orchestra and chorus. Even those of us who endeavored to follow along with the printed texts in our program were often left to guess where we were. And, of course, in that space, higher frequencies (whether voices or instruments) drown out lower, longer notes drown out faster, and a miked narrator will cover everything. All of which made the musical product pretty much a hash most of the time.  That said, when things slowed down at climaxes with everything becoming coherent, the effect was near-cataclysmic.

Adolphus Hailstork is an imposing presence these days; his massive Knee On The Neck oratorio last year (from the National Philharmonic) was a major event, and yesterday’s Done Made My Vow for choir, soloists, narrator, and orchestra, although nearly 40 years old now, is if anything, more powerful and relevant than it was at the premiere. The opening (spoken) lines have a somewhat dated, emancipation feel, but the various texts that follow, from Psalms, Black icons like Frederick Douglas and Barack Obama (interpolated recently), and spirituals merge into a very powerful tapestry. 

Hailstork’s harmonic language is sophisticated; he uses dissonance with deliberate care, dramatically pointing up something in the text or setting a particular mood. But he still treats it “classically,” in the sense that it eventually needs resolution. There was a stirring, Bruckneresque brass chorale towards the end, and the string writing (in the rare moments it could even be heard) had color and character. Soloists Kishna Fowler and Issachah Savage brought blazing tone and conviction. I think all of us would like to hear a recording of this work, professionally-balanced under the composer’s direction, which would likely be revelatory. But the final peroration was orgiastic, and the ovation went on for many minutes.  

The tidbits on the first half of the concert included more arrangements of Psalms and spirituals (by Hailstork, James Lee III, Nathan Carter, Ulysses Kay, and of course Florence Price), all enjoyable and well-sung. The most interesting and original work was Agnus Dei by Damien Geter (b. 1980), an a capella work that subtly blended jazz and gospel phrases with rigorous, modern-classical rhetoric. A voice we should hear more from.  

Whether African-American composers are better-served today by specialty concerts like this or by simply letting the open market decide is not for me to say. I would certainly be hard-pressed to guess the race of any of these composers if I simply turned on the radio and heard the music (particularly if the texts were as blurred as they were here). Is that a good or a bad thing? In terms of sheer musical quality, I believe that most of the works on A Service of Honor would eventually find their way without any special push.   

Photo by Erin Haar.