Chicago Symphony Chorus triumphs in Schubert’s introspective Sixth Mass

In 1957, Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Fritz Reiner persuaded Margaret Hillis to establish a house chorus, which joined the ensemble a year later for its first concerts on March 13 and 14. The symphony marked the 60th anniversary of that milestone Thursday evening with the first in a set of three concerts that only reinforced the international standing of its choral counterpart.

Music director Riccardo Muti and the orchestra and chorus presented Franz Schubert’s Mass No. 6 in E-flat major, D. 950 – a work that the composer did not live to see performed in November 1828 in the same church in a Viennese suburb where Beethoven’s funeral was held.

Unlike Verdi’s Requiem Mass, with its angry thunder and operatic drama, Schubert’s Sixth Mass is more solemn, contained and introspective (the orchestration leaves out the flutes for a darker timbre). The work certainly exerts its share of power, but after every forceful exclamation, the music pulls back for a moment of reflection or to make its point in hushed fashion.

To its credit, the symphony did not scrimp on the five soloists even though they appear only sparingly in this work. Indeed, soprano Amanda Forsythe, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong, tenors Paul Appleby and Nicholas Phan and bass Nahuel Di Pierro were heard so little that it was hard to draw any definitive impressions of them individually. But what can be said is that all of these top-flight singers blended stunningly and displayed a sensitive feel for the turned-in quality of this music.

The obvious star of the show was the chorus, and it made the most of the opportunity. Superbly prepared by Duain Wolfe, who took over for Hillis in 1994, these 115 singers brought a suitably nuanced and restrained approach to this masterwork, singing with exacting precision and total commitment.

The evening opened with the overture to Oberon, Carl Maria von Weber’s final opera, which premiered just two years before Schubert’s Mass and offers a fanciful take-off on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Its dreamy, quiet opening and spirited melodies, all vibrantly realized by Muti and the orchestra, felt like just the right beginning for this evening focused on the human voice.

As a kind of counterpoint to the Mass, the orchestra presented the world premiere of Three Lisel Mueller Settings, a work composed by symphony violist Max Raimi. It’s unusual for an orchestra to play a work by one of its own, but Muti and the orchestra had performed Raimi’s arrangement of the University of Michigan fight song twice on tour, and the conductor liked what he heard.

After doing further investigation, Muti asked the in-house composer to write a piece for the orchestra, giving him the freedom to pick the kind of composition he wanted to do. Raimi is a big fan of Mueller, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1997, previously setting four of her poems in 2002.

To evoke the tough, offbeat flavor of these poems (An Unanswered Question, for example, tells of an aboriginal woman displayed in 19th-century human zoo), Raimi has sculpted a stark, restless, at times almost out-of-control world with a collision of skittish woodwinds, spiky harp and punctuating brass. Undergirding everything are seven drums and a bevy of other percussion, including a lead pipe struck with a hammer, delivering loud, dull clunks that seem oddly appropriate.

Each of the three intense, atmospheric works showcases one member of the orchestra – principal clarinetist Stephen Williamson in The Story, principal bassoonist Keith Buncke in An Unanswered Question and principal bassist Alexander Hanna in Hope. All three made the most of their spotlighted moments, but the clear standout was Hanna, who poignantly captured the searching melancholy of his extended solo with agile expressiveness and handsome, deep-throated timbres.

Heard briefly in the Mass, DeShong was centerstage here. Although the mezzo-soprano was strong across her full range, her wonderfully dark-hued lower register was especially suited to these songs. She seemed completely at home in their uneasy exoticism, bringing the kind of impassioned urgency and dramatic edginess that they require. All she was lacking was a bit more power to fully project in the expanse of Orchestra Hall.

Conflicting sounds and motives tumble and intersect in this challenging music, but it all cohered in a work that Muti and the orchestra made sure came across as substantial, whole and compelling.

Kyle MacMillan is a Chicago-based freelance writer.