Seraphour: Anno Domini
Seraphour
Consistent with a name that combines “seraph” and “four,” the vocal quartet Seraphour makes celestial music. Formed in 2020 by soprano Heidi Vass with Melissa Birch (soprano), Emma Grace Roche (alto), and Dana Rouse (alto), the Los Angeles-based a cappella group issued its debut album Angele Dei in late 2021 and now follows it with the ravishing Anno Domini. Seraphour's choral repertoire ranges from Renaissance motets to works by living composers, the group on the one hand dedicated to keeping the sacred canon alive but also committed to bolstering it with vibrant material by new composers. Those featured extend from early figures Gregorio Allegri and John Taverner to ones in their early twenties, Mia Ruhman, Aidan Vass, and Yoni Fogelman. Enhancing the recording is a booklet that contains texts plus clarifying details about the composers and the works performed.
The program begins with Ruhman's O Magnum Mysterium, which escalates from a haunting, ethereal introductory episode to uninhibited exultation to celebrate the birth of Christ, the piece arresting for both the preternatural maturity of Ruhman's writing and the stunning, sirens-like vocal effect the singers' voices create when combined. Next is Videntes stellam Maji by Caracas native César Carillo, a soothing set-piece that arrests the ear with homophonic gestures and subtle chromatic inflections. Bruce Vandervalk, who was born in Australia and died in California in March 2024, composed the alternately gentle and ecstatic Kyrie in 2021 for Seraphour as a solo concert piece; in fact, the event at the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills where he saw the quartet perform it in April, 2023 was the last one he was able to attend.
As rewarding as the album material is overall, the piece that makes the greatest impact is Vass's arrangement of Allegri's Miserere mei, Deus, and not simply because its eleven-minute duration makes it more than twice the length of the next longest piece. No, this magnificent setting of Psalm 51 mesmerizes for the intimate treble arrangement Vass created for the group based on its original two-choir scoring for five and four voices, respectively, and for a structure that sees vocal parts alternating before joining for a polyphonic ending. The technique falsobordone is deployed whereby a single-voiced recitation on one chord is followed by a full-group statement, and it's this repeating pattern that helps make the work so spellbinding. Vass makes a second appearance when Seraphour performs his Veni Creator, which, as a setting of the Liturgical text, begins with the traditional chant before blossoming into a contrapuntal expression before culminating in the final statement.
Elsewhere, American composer Randall Thompson's Alleluia almost suggests a gospel connection when the four voices deliver their repeated “Alleluias” with church-like fervour. Scored for four high voices, John Taverner's heavenly Audivi vocem de caelo alternates between plainchant and polyphony to glorious effect. After the collectively chanted In Paradisum, which is often sung at the end of a funereal service, Fogelman's Song of Miriam concludes the set with a joyous expression punctuated by handclaps and highlighted by Seraphour's euphoric execution. Throughout the Hebrew-sung piece, each member is called upon to embody the strength and holiness of Miriam the Prophet before the four unite in harmony.
With only four voices involved, the performances allow for maximum clarity and for each of the singers' parts to be appreciated. The polyphonic tapestries they generate are often stunning but as engrossing are the passages where sub-units and single voices declaim (e.g., the solo soprano soaring over the others during Audivi vocem de caelo). And despite the significant temporal divide separating the composers, their pieces form a cohesive whole when the music is entirely performed a cappella and when the content throughout has to do with sacred matters.January 2025