Music review: Gloria Musicae

Camille Saint-Saëns was a fairly prolific composer and many of his works, from his Organ Symphony to his opera, “Samson and Delilah,” have become staples of the repertoire. Not so with his Christmas Oratorio, which is done only occasionally and, while there are a few lovely moments in it – including some touching solos and one or two exquisite segments underscored by a celestial harp – it’s not his greatest work.

That said, the Gloria Musicae Singers and Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Joseph Holt, offered it at the ensemble’s “Glorious Christmas” program at First United Methodist Church. The five soloists (soprano Johanna Fincher, mezzos Robyn Rocklein and Alix Faulhaber, tenor Adam Bielamowicz and baritone Christopher Holloway), had a good sense of the music and style, and the chamber orchestra (made up of several members of the Sarasota Orchestra, including concertmaster Daniel Jordan) lent a warm, sonorous tone that made this Oratorio an agreeable reminder of the pastoral side of the Christmas celebration.

The program opened with the Singers processing down the center aisle of the church singing “Of the Father’s Love Begotten,” accompanied by hand bells that gave their sound an unearthly and mysterious sense of beauty.

The second half of the program juxtaposed Mendelssohn’s magnificent choral cantata, “Vom Himmel hoch,” in which the composer took his love of music by Bach and incorporated the Baroque style into his own larger, more romantic forces, with the tenderness of Franz Gruber’s “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht!” It was in this beautifully designed contrast that the Gloria Musicae Singers’s tasteful and elegant sound came to full fruition.

The Mendelssohn is a broad, beautifully constructed work and the chorus, consisting of only about 30 professional singers, sounded rich, strong, sensitive and very beautiful, never over-singing and always paying attention to the style of the music. Holt sculpted their sound so the choral segments were in just the right proportion to the orchestra, bringing a richness and excellence to this particularly excellent music.

Going from the opulent final chorus of the Mendelssohn, “Lob Her seit Gott im Hoechsten Thron,” to the gentleness of “Silent Night,” was a masterstroke of programming and, with the flickering candlelight in the church, it was mesmerizing and poignant.

Christmas music can be bold as brass or gentle as a harp and flute. Gloria Musicae’s Glorious Christmas concert was more of the latter and the deftness of the musicians – singers and instrumentalists – brought out the sophistication and deep meaning music adds to the spirit of the holiday.