Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Sacred music then and now: Trinity Wall Street’s soul-searching MESSIAH and an austere performance of David Lang’s THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL PASSION

• By drediman
• December 15, 2023
• No Comments

On my continued pursuit to hear music in non-traditional spaces, I came across a pair of oratorios that are representative of sacred music — both then and now. These performances also proved to be meaningful holiday experiences, engaging the listener to reflect on the solemnity of the season in deeply soul-searching ways. Read on for my thoughts.

THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL PASSION
Death of Classical / Ekmeles at the Church of Intercession

Since premiering in 2007, David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) has become one of the most frequently performed 21st century choral pieces. Based on a heartbreaking story by Hans Christian Andersen and modeled after Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, the minimalist, deeply humanistic Pulitzer Prize winning composition tells the tragic tale of a destitute girl who is forced to sell matches on the street, only to end up freezing to death. Intimately staged in the atmospheric crypt of the Church of Intercession, Death of Classical brings back this contemporary classic for the holiday season in perhaps its most austere, affecting configuration comprised of just four vocal soloists, who also double as percussionists. By downsizing the ensemble down to its essentials, the work’s audacious juxtapositions (or associations?) — between hope and suffering, ecstasy and blight, sacred and mundane, the Little Match Girl and Christ — hit the listener with the utmost force. As performed by the astonishing vocal ensemble Ekmeles, the stark beauty of the work’s whispering chants shined through with ravishing clarity. Suffice to say, the immersive performance was altogether transcendent, casting a meditative spell over the audience, allowing listeners to reflect upon the mysteries of our common passion — that of the human experience — and inspiring compassion in the process.

MESSIAH
Trinity Church Wall Street

Those of you who think that Handel’s Messiah falls in the category of safe but dull Christmastime programming, I beg you to reconsider. Down at Trinity Church Wall Street, you’ll find a rendition of the 1741 oratorio (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) — for some years now regarded as one of the city’s finest — that’s charged with urgency and vitality. As conducted by Ryan James Brandau, Wednesday’s opening night performance traded in the arms length passion usually associated with the beloved choral work with an approachable and immediate communal experience. Throughout, the performance was vibrant and infused with deep feeling. Even the famous “Hallelujah” chorus — although well earned — seemed just a part of the overall fabric of the piece rather than an anticipated showstopper. Although the unavoidable church acoustics somewhat dulled the vivid yet balanced music-making, they also added a resonance to the performance that’s unique to Trinity Wall Street’s version. Like Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion, the performance struck a note of real transcendence, inspiring both listener and performer — in an ingenious dramaturgical choice, the oratorio’s soloists are culled from the chorus — into collective introspection. Indeed, beyond merely sounding lucid and pretty, this Messiah actively engages the soul, seeking to transform through the shared experience it cultivates.