05.30.08
Bravo to the ensembles...
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Donald Rosenberg

Did it make any difference that Trio Mediaeval, an angelic female ensemble from Scandinavia, was greatly outnumbered by Cantus, a dynamic nonet of male singers based in Minneapolis? Not a bit. They shared a program Wednesday at Cleveland's Trinity Cathedral with equal vibrancy, though they rarely sang together.

The a cappella concert was the season finale in the Cleveland Museum of Art's Viva! & Gala Around Town series, which has been presenting superb soloists and ensembles in local venues while the museum undergoes expansion and renovation. Surely no one could quibble about the site where Trio Mediaeval and Cantus sent voices into crystal-clear acoustical space Wednesday.

The two groups spent most of the evening in musical alternation. Cantus largely remained on the platform in the chancel area. The ultrapure voices of Trio Mediaeval occasionally floated in from distant corners.

To keep things cohesive, the ensembles performed sacred music during the first half and folk music and spirituals during the second. Cantus applied abundant warmth and seamless interaction to all of its fare, and hinted of a cheeky sense of humor.

Nothing is whimsical about Bob Chilcott's "5 Ways to Kill a Man," a stinging, syncopated indictment of man's inhumanity for voices and ominous drums. On a less cynical level, Cantus made a luminous thing of the evolving harmonies and dynamics in Eric Whitacre's "Lux Aurumque" and added robust lilt to the spiritual "What I Have Done," with baritone Dashon Burton as robust soloist.

Trio Mediaeval, which appeared on the museum's series at Trinity in November 2006, brought special radiance to every note. Their first entrance could only be described as heavenly, with voices arriving from three different points. The trio's ability to negotiate the most delicate, perfectly tuned lines was evident whenever the singers set vocal cords vibrating.

After intermission, the dominant repertoire was Norwegian folk songs, a selection of which Trio Mediaeval performed as if they'd known these tunes since childhood. Among the pieces was a wordless dance that received enchanting treatment.

The men of Cantus enjoyed themselves immensely -- as did the audience -- in "Dalvi duoddar luohti," a parody of a Finnish folk song full of whistling, quasi-yodeling and amicable interplay. They clapped intricate patterns as they sang "Let Your Voice Be Heard," creating their own rhythm section, and brought sonorous swing to the spiritual "I Can't Tarry."

Although the ensembles came in close juxtaposition in Franz Biebl's "Ave Maria" to close the first half, they only merged voices at night's end in Veljo Tormis' "Helletused," an array of Estonian herding calls that keep the men on vocal Earth and the women in the sonic stratosphere. The results were mesmerizing.