Kile Smith's "Vespers' by Piffaro

Four years ago, Philadelphia's Renaissance band Piffaro premiered Kile Smith's Vespers—a new work, commissioned by Piffaro, for small chorus and Renaissance instruments. At the time I dubbed it one of the major events of the season (see my BSR review here), and it elicited similar comments from all the local reviewers who wrote about it. The CD featuring the original cast has received rave reviews from Fanfare, Gramofone and a host of other publications.

Vespers gathered so many accolades that Piffaro has now handed Smith one of the rarest honors a contemporary composer can experience: a second performance. As most modern composers learn, it's easier to get a first performance than a second. A premiere is an event that music organizations can publicize and attract extra attention. A second performance is just another program listing.

The second performance of Vespers actually exceeded the first. Smith has made some changes in the score, and the musicians and the chorus benefited from all the work they'd put into the recording sessions and the original performance.

My fears allayed

But the real basis of its success was the quality of Smith's work. You can listen to first-class pieces more than once because they evoke deep feelings and present you with music so varied and complex that you hear new things every time you listen to them.

The first time I heard Vespers, the opening bars sounded like four detached chords. For a moment I feared that Smith had joined the ranks of the modern composers who paste together fragments without creating a trace of melody. But this time, the four chords created a solemn introduction to a work that maintains a deeply spiritual quality from beginning to end.

In this second performance I was also struck by the way Smith uses women's voices. He doesn't neglect the tenors and the basses, but the effects he creates with the women, particularly the sopranos, create much of the mood of Vespers. I can see why Smith's latest premiere is a dance suite, composed for the Baroque group Melomanie, entitled The Nobility of Women.

Demands on the chorus

Smith achieves variety and complexity partly by the imaginative way he varies vocal combinations. I didn't try to time his pacing, but I would guess he shifts to a new combination three or four times a minute— a compositional technique that can only work if you're writing for a chorus that can meet its demands.

Fortunately, Piffaro's partner in this continuing enterprise is Donald Nally's The Crossing, a 23-voice chorus that specializes in modern music. Philadelphians can take some pride in the fact that we have a chorus that can handle the kind of challenges Smith throws at them. Nally's experts slalom through all those hops with a grace that would earn them several hundred 10s if they were competing in an Olympic event.