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THERE are three "perfect" intervals in music: The prime and its octave, the perfect fourth and the perfect fifth. Ensemble aims for
otherworldly soundBy Stephanie Kendrick
Star-BulletinAccording to Bill McGlaughlin, host of public radio's St. Paul Sunday, medieval composers structured their work around these intervals, as has modern composer Arvo Pärt.
A mass by the 66-year-old Estonian composer leads the bill for the Hawai'i Vocal Arts Ensemble's concert tomorrow.
McGlaughlin christened Pärt the most important exponent of the "New Simplicity" movement in orchestral music.
"What is interesting in Pärt's music is what is not there. There is little rhythmic complexity, no extravagant use of orchestration, no self-conscious harmonic display or dissonance. What we do find is a straightforward flowing rhythm, reminiscent of chant, and a very spare harmonic palette of pure intervals," said McGlaughlin.
ON STAGE
What: Hawai'i Vocal Arts Ensemble sings the Arvo Pärt Berliner Messe
Timothy Carney, director of the Hawai'i Vocal Arts Ensemble, describes Pärt's music as hypnotic.
"His music is never flashy, but it's profound," he said.
The 9-year-old choral group has done smaller pieces by Pärt in the past, but this is its first performance of a complete mass.
The ensemble gives five or six concerts a year, its largest being the Candlelight Christmas concert at St. Andrews Cathedral.
Carney says it's not all that rare to find the work of a living composer on the program, though older, more familiar choral pieces are usually represented as well.
"To me it's not that important whether it's a living composer or an old dead guy as long as the music's got something to it," he said.
"Our group likes to present music that hasn't been heard a lot. That's a big part of our mission," said Carney.
For those who are wary of modern orchestral music, he hastened to add Pärt's work is eminently accessible.
McGlaughlin described it as otherworldly.
"When we hear these intervals sung in a large resonant space, like a cathedral, they have a miraculous effect," he said on his radio program.
"The two notes a fifth apart, C and G, for example, start to generate other sounds. They fill in the chord. We glance around the cathedral, wondering, looking for an angel choir."
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