BSO’s weighty Requiem powerful One soloist resonant, the other unusual

ORONO – Celebrations of birth and commemorations of death have a way of connecting the fleeting present with the vast eternities of the past and the equally vast infinities of the future, so taking a moment to celebrate a birthday before spending more than an hour with the performance of Johannes Brahms’ great work, The German Requiem op. 45, seems particularly fitting.

As Bangor Symphony Orchestra Executive Director Susan Jonason greeted the audience before the BSO concert at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono on Sunday afternoon, she pointed to the balcony and announced: “Today is a very special day. We have with us in the audience a birthday girl, Hannelore Classon. Hannelore is 82 years old and was born in the same apartment where Brahms was born.”

Before diving into a somewhat solemn description of a serious performance of a very serious piece of music, let me make a few light observations. With the BSO and the combined choruses of the University of Maine Singers and the University of Maine Oratorio Society packed in, the stage of Hutchins Concert Hall at the Maine Center for the Arts looked like a crowded elevator at a formalwear convention. The concert hall felt warm even out in the seats, and I can only imagine how warm the performers and singers felt packed in like sardines under the stage lights. So “bravo!” to all of them for persevering under less than ideal conditions.

Now as to the music: This piece felt like a strange, arcane ritual performed in deliberate slow motion, like a ceremonial procession of mythic figures in a fever dream. There was palpable weight to the music, both in the density of sound and in the gravitas with which every movement, even the supposedly more lighthearted fourth movement, was performed. The sound of the BSO married well with the textural mass of the chorus, and the whole piece seemed to float forward as gracefully and as ponderously as a lead zeppelin.

The very weight that gave the piece such power also made for a work with little differentiation between the movements, except for the singing of soloists Sheng Zhou and Barbara Shirvis. Baritone Zhou, with a mien as serious as the music, sang passages from Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible with a voice both resonant and somber. Shirvis, who was asked to fill in for another soprano nearly at the last

moment, had a silvery voice, which, in its higher registers, sounded nearly electronic; more like the timbre of water glasses or musical saws than an ordinary human voice. This is not to say it was unpleasant, only that it was unusual. Her tender presentation of the text from Ecclesiastes at the end of the fifth movement was particularly moving: “Behold with your eyes, how that I labored but a little, and found for myself a rest.”

At the close of the Requiem, the audience literally jumped up to give the performers a standing ovation as well as several curtain calls. At one point, choral directors Dennis Cox and Ludlow Hallman joined BSO director Xiao-Lu Li for even more enthusiastic applause, whistles and cheers.

The performance was lovely, meditative and emotional. If it was also monochromatic, is it less lovely?

The next concert by the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, on May 21 at the MCA, will be the 110th Season Finale, featuring works by Smetana, Saint-Saens and Dvorak. For information on this concert or on the Bangor Symphony Orchestra in general, visit www.bangorsymphony.com

Helen York can be reached for comment at heyork@hotmail.com.