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I always look forward to the Early Music Now Christmas season concert, easily the classiest holiday event of its kind in the area each December. Taking place at St. Joseph’s Chapel, the city’s most flattering acoustics for choral music, the New York-based group Pomerium performed two well-attended concerts this weekend. I heard the one on Sunday afternoon.
Pomerium, which began in 1972, is one of the oldest early music ensembles in the country. It derives its name from the medieval Latin word for garden or orchard. The fourteen a cappella voices of the ensemble, conducted by founder Alexander Blachly, sang with precision, balance and beautiful blend. The program was of Advent and Christmas Gregorian chants and their Renaissance elaborations by composers such as Guillaume Dufay, William Byrd, Josquin Des Prez, Orlande de Lassus and Giovanni Palestrina.
I was constantly fascinated by the texture of the choral sound, with counter-tenors often switching from cultivated falsetto to a normal tenor sound. This made a unique ensemble, not like most choruses, and I was throughout listening for the inner voices of the harmonies because of it. Phrasing of the unison chants was lovely and with refined tapering. At times, the sound of the singers was so perfectly in tune that harmonies rang the splendid chapel with resonant purity.
About half an hour into the concert I was thinking it was better than good, but I realized there was a sameness to the music. Then, the selections became richer and more complex. Josquin Des Prez’s motet Praeter rerum was striking and haunting, brooding with unusual harmonies. Palestrina’s Dies sanctificatus for double chorus was a high point, a tapestry of colors and sounds. The one hour and twenty-minute concert was performed without intermission and without applause until the end. I appreciated the chance to settle in and listen without distraction.
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Early Music Now is respected as one of the most important series of its kind, presenting the best medieval, Renaissance and Baroque ensembles in the world. Local performing arts lovers should be proud that it has built such a loyal audience here in Milwaukee.
