da | Concert Review: Da Capo, "One"

DaCapo played a concert this evening, titled "One: In the Beginning."

The first piece was "Calme" by Leonard Enns, the conductor; it had wonderful dissonances and harmonies, as well as some improvisation.

A Credo by Einojuhani Rautavaara (Finnish) felt overly long (or overly slow), but I liked a quote from him in the program: "music is great if, at some moment, the listener catches 'a glimpse of eternity through the window of time'... This, to my mind, is the only true justification for art. All else is of secondary importance." I can get behind that.

There was an Aaron Copland ("In the Beginning") that I liked less than other of his work, although the soloist mezzo-soprano was very good. And there was an OK Russian piece that also felt long.

After the intermission, there was "The Peacable Kingdom", by Randall Thompson, inspired by the painting of the same name by the Quaker, Edward Hicks. It's a surprisingly violent piece for the painting it was inspired by; lots of woe and howling. But in the 6th section, things pick up and there is a wonderful part from Isaiah 55:12 "the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" where "clap their hands" turns into a round, very joyful and playful. And it ends with an even more joyful Isaiah 40:21 "Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning?" Isaiah 30:29 "Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the Lord."

The last piece in the program was Holst's "Nunc Dimittis", less joyful but wonderful harmonies.

The encore was a composer I didn't recognize or copy down the name of, so I'll have to only say that I enjoyed it.

The concert was well-sung, as usual- Leonard Enns was a bit chattier than usual, though they started precisely at 8 and the intermission was only 10 minutes, which I think

melted_snowball will be happy to hear. :)

Accompanied by the ever-chipper

chezmax (even though he somehow has a cold? And was bouncy anyway? I don't get it, but I'm not complaining in the slightest, as he was wonderful company!)