Florence Beatrice Price: Choral Works, Malmö Opera Orchestra and Chorus, conductor John Jeter. Naxos (8.559951). Total time 55:02.
DIGITAL REVIEW — John Jeter is devoted to composer Florence Price. He has proved this commitment in a series of recordings for Naxos Records, including all of the American composer’s symphonies plus other orchestral pieces. This newest release, Choral Works, embraces a rarely heard aspect of Price’s musical skill — her writing for voice. Three of the pieces are world-premiere recordings.
Among those unknown works is a multi-movement cantata, Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, published in 1914, when Price was in her twenties. It sets a text by Illinois writer Vachel Lindsay about President Lincoln, returned to life. He’s pacing forlornly through the streets of modern-day America, heartbroken by the state of things. “Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?” the poet wonders. Now, well over a century since the poem was written, its imagery is more apt than ever.
Jeter leads the Malmö Opera Orchestra and Chorus, an organization that’s been around since 1991 in the Swedish city where it’s based. The choir’s English diction is always perfect and understandable, even in the most intricate rhythms, and its expression fluid and nuanced. Producer and engineer Sean Lewis crafts lively details allowing the chorus to sound like a group of individual singers, rather than an impersonal, unified “choral voice.” A sonic downside is the overly bright sibilants; this can be distracting, especially through headphones.
One of the most interesting things about the Lincoln cantata is the original way Price handles the text. Clear-voiced soprano Sara Swietlicki opens the overture by singing just one line from the third verse of Lindsay’s poem, a most unusual start to a cantata. The solo voice sounds against dense, almost Mahlerian orchestration. The chorus then comes in for the first numbered movement (of six) at the start of poem, singing mostly in chorale-like rhythms.
The second movement again uses the soprano, this time just for the last line of the second verse. Then the chorale texture returns, and so forth. Price is precise in assigning melodic ideas and tempos to verbal phrases to enhance their meaning. This is not just the largest choral work by Price; it is surely destined to be a major work in the American choral repertoire.
The nine-plus-minute “Song of Hope” is the second premiere recording offered here. This micro-oratorio is scored for orchestra, chorus, and three solo parts, ably executed by Swietlicki, mezzo-soprano Lindsay Grace Johnson, and baritone Jonas Samuelsson.
Price uses her own poetry, written in an archaic, Biblical style, with the narrator seeking God’s help withstanding a time of suffering. The music leans heavily on the spiritual tradition, combined with late-Romantic concepts orchestration. Jeter keeps the histrionics in check, allowing the notes and text to speak for themselves despite recurring waves of intensity. It would be easy to overdo this piece.
The orchestra, plus Robert Bennesh on organ, plays only in the Lincoln cantata and “Song of Hope.” The rest of the works, short SATB songs, are accompanied by Jan Karlsson Korp doing yeoman’s duty on piano. Clearly an experienced choral pianist, he knows just how to assist in each song’s emotion and rhythm, efficiently and without bombast.
There are two fantastical songs, both using poetry by Mary Rolofson Gamble. “The Witch of the Meadow” (another world premiere), despite its topic, is sweet and romantic, with a dramatic modulation in the middle. Gamble’s “The Moon Bridge,” one of the chorus’ best performances as the singers navigate complex dissonances and shifts in tempo, shimmers like moonbeams on a pond. Price’s take on a third Gamble poem, “Summer Clouds,” has the whirling energy of carousel music.
Clouds are not the only natural phenomenon being sung about. In fact, Jeter has assembled a bit of an atmospheric theme: Following the summer song is “Song for Snow,” on a poem by American writer Elizabeth Coatsworth, best known for her award-winning children’s books. The innocent delight of a child wondering at a blanket of white over the earth is captured in Price’s prancing melody. And then there’s the elegant, joyous “Weathers,” setting words by Thomas Hardy, of all people.
Coatsworth also wrote “Poem of Praise.” Despite its title, it is not overtly religious but rather an appreciation of nature’s various manifestations (“Swift things are beautiful…And slow things are beautiful”), flowing alternately from major to minor. Demonstrating Price’s range of styles, “Praise the Lord” contrasts wildly with the previous track, turning to a strident, chord-based setting of Psalm 117.
The album ends with “Resignation,” again on Price’s own text. The poem is a litany of sorrow, a newly composed spiritual about all the trouble she’s seen. It employs the six-note minor-mode scale typical of that genre. The Malmö Chorus sings it a cappella with soulful yearning. Yet “Resignation” ends on a quiet, hopeful note, looking forward to eternal peace and a chance to see lost loved ones again.
