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Fanfare

Texas-based composer Mark Buller must have been thrilled when embarking on this project with Craig Hella Johnson and Conspirare, as having the opportunity of working with arguably the finest professional choir in the United States doesn’t really come around all that often for any composer. The results here clearly advance the reputations of all involved, and re-affirm the status of Conspirare as just described.

Butler’s music is relatively conservative in its tonal and textural language, but where it succeeds where so much other recent American choral music utilizing similar methods fails, is in its sincerity of purpose as well as its greater sophistication of execution. In all of this, Conspirare’s focused sound and impeccable intonation, diction, blend, and flexibility allow Butler’s music maximum opportunity to shine. The contributions of all of the instrumentalists involved in the project—while perhaps not on quite the same level as the singing—are also effective, and the album as a whole is both emotionally and aurally rewarding.

There are two significant works on this program and two smaller works designed to bookend the larger compositions. I personally felt the short opening Introit: Fruit of Your Heart was the weakest piece on the program, and the wandering opening solo guitar line did not come over as well as it might have on account of the tendency for some of the notes (especially higher ones) to speak more loudly than others. The singing is predictably excellent, but for me the piece really didn’t go anywhere. The closing Communion: A Questioning, on the other hand, was much more interesting, especially on account of the octave unison writing for voices, which actually doesn’t happen very much, and is deceptively hard to bring off even remotely as well as achieved here.

The two larger works on this program, Mass in Exile and Requiem in the Light, aim to bring a fresh and contemporary take on those two traditional choral forms, and in this regard both succeed admirably. While there is much that is reflective in these works, there is also plenty of contrast, and I found the longer movements of each work to be particularly effective in sustaining structural integrity—and therefore the listener’s interest—rather better than is often the case with very new music. Particular highlights were the Miserere and the Earth Sanctus of the Mass in Exile, as well as the Lacrimosa of the Requiem in the Light.

As mentioned on a couple of occasions above, there are a few moments when the instrumental contributions here are not quite up to the exceptional standards of the singing, and another of these comes at the very end of the Requiem in the Light, where the high strings just before the final choral chord are not quite in tune, which is a shame as the writing here is quite distinctively luminous, and the effect is just fractionally tarnished.

The recording itself is quite lovely, with nice space around all of the performers and a particularly warm and inviting choral sound. The balance of the guitar against the other forces has been impeccably handled, and the various solo vocal contributions are especially well caught in believable perspectives. Production values in the accompanying booklet are excellent.

This is an album of contemporary music that I think will have wide appeal, not just to aficionados of choral music, but also to a broader cross-section of music lovers, perhaps not even only “classical” devotees. Many such folks might also find a surprising element of comfort in difficult times here, and that alone is cause for celebration. Strongly recommended.