As a violinist and fiddler,
Mark O'Connor has worked in a wide variety of styles and idioms, and his own compositions reflect the same eclecticism, which encompasses folk, rock, country, bluegrass, contemporary classical, and jazz. The bulk of his work has been instrumental, but here he turns his attention to choral music, and this disc includes two pieces, an anthem, Let Us Move, and a Folk Mass, both written for the Massachusetts-based a cappella ensemble
Gloriae Dei Cantores.
O'Connor's folksy imprint is easily discernible in Let Us Move, which includes an obbligato part for violin. It begins with a danceable metric regularity and a melodic line that sounds like a slightly eccentric tune from the tradition of early American hymnody, but he develops the material with considerable elegance, wit, and sophistication. For the Folk Mass,
O'Connor assembled quite a long text from a wide variety of writings from the Hebrew Bible and divided it thematically into seven movements.
O'Connor is not alone among composers in dispensing with standard texts while retaining the name of a liturgical form,
Brahms' German Requiem being the prime example, but it's hard to tell how these texts have anything at all to do with the subject or structure of a mass. This setting is almost entirely homophonic, so the words are clearly understandable, but the downside is a monotony of texture. For the most part,
O'Connor's setting has the character of choral recitative, rather than the strophic regularity of folk song. Individual lines are melodically graceful, but the text setting is sometimes awkward, blocky, and inexpert. Most of the movements have a meandering feeling, without enough rhythmic or melodic patterning to provide much musical focus, or easily discernible structure, or even purposefulness. The first movement, set for solo soprano and tenor voices, is the most effective, and Estelle Cole and Richard Cragg sing it beautifully.
Gloriae Dei Cantores, led by
Elizabeth C. Patterson, gives a remarkably committed and disciplined performance. The group has more of a chance to shine in the inventive choral writing of Let Us Move than in the largely conventional writing of the Mass. The sound is clean, warm, and present.