The New York City Children’s Choir: Soaring feeling and solemn reflection in abundance
By David McGee
CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK
New York City Children’s Choir at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church
Mary Wanamaker Huff, Artistic Director
Andrew Henderson, Accompanist
MSR Classics (2020)
Beauty of this magnitude will rarely be found in any season among choral ensembles, and it’s safe to say that the New York City Children’s Chorus has raised the bar exceedingly high on this, its second album (the first, Simple Gifts, was released in 2015). The Choir’s nine choral ensembles (80 voices total) are comprised of young people ages four through 18, “steeped in bel canto,” as the liner notes indicate, from the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church’s graded choral program. Guided by founder/artistic director Mary Wanamaker Huff, the NYCC, winners an American Prize in Choral Ensembles last year, has become one of the premier treble choirs in the world. On Christmas in New York, the advanced ensembles offer a performance for the ages, with those young voices so delicate, so clear, richly textured and emotionally resonant in the captivating arrangements on this 18-track program that concludes with the first chamber orchestra recordings of Randall Thompson’s beautiful four-movement The Place of the Best.
‘Still, Still, Still,’ New York City Children’s Choir, arranged by Norman Luboff, from Christmas in New York
These voices need little instrumental assistance in getting to the heart of the matter. Pianist Andrew Henderson provides simple, complementary accompaniment and clever fills along the way; harp, violin and organ join in on four carols, handbells on one, all providing the most graceful of minimal instrumental to enhance the often-otherworldly strains the young voices achieve, especially in their upper registers. The opening track, “Still, Still, Still,” with exquisite violin and harp atmospherics, is as light and soothing as the falling snow and sleeping world the lyrics reference in the Norman Luboff arrangement. The Scottish carol and plainchant, “The Bright Daystar,” needs only Henderson’s inventive piano fills, his fingers rushing briskly across the keys, to add subdued drama to the ever-increasing intensity of the vocal drama the Choir adds in singing “with your notes upon the height,” as the lyrics urge. These two opening tracks set the tone for the rest of the album in illustrating the Choir’s strength in quite different settings, with sotto voce instrumental support and more emphatic backing as well.
‘Christmas Angel,’ The New York City Children’s Choir; Katie Gurney, treble solo; from Christmas in New York
‘Gesù Bambino,’ New York City Children’s Choir, from Christmas in New York
Nothing that happens in the first seven tracks prepares one for the penetrating beauty awaiting a listener in treble soloist Katie Gurney’s ethereal solo—truly ascending onto some plane of feeling where words become useless—as the Choir hums softly behind her on two of three verses of Corlynn Hanney’s “Christmas Angel.” As she sings: Oh how I wish I could sing like an angel/I’d sing carols so high and sweet/oh, if I had the voice of an angel/I’d be singin’ that sweet child to sleep, she offers much to admire in her control, her precision diction and her emotional investment in the lyrics; but there’s more: her longing for celestial transformation is so profound she disappears into the words she sings, no longer interpreting Hanney’s poetry but becoming it, embodying it, angel incarnate. Here, then, we hear the mesmerizing cry of an angel’s voice. And then, lo, we hear even more angels’ voices in the following track, the haunting “Gesu Bambino,” featuring the choir ascendant in fully flowered ensemble voice, over gentle harp and poignant violin accompaniment–a powerfully rendered, multi-tiered arrangement of the Italian Christmas carol written in 1917 by Pietro A. Yon with text from a poem by Frederick Martens and melody and chorus lyrics interpolated from “Adeste Fideles.” You can listen to Christmas albums old and new, current and from decades past, and not experience two more penetrating performances than these. We are humbled in their midst.
‘Carol of the Bells,’ the Ukrainian carol, by the New York City Children’s Choir, from Christmas in New York
For more lighthearted moments, the Choir and pianist Henderson have a jolly good time on a quartet of seasonal favorites, including a spirited “Deck the Halls,” a rollicking “Jingle Bells,” a reverent “O Christmas Tree” and a lively reading of the beloved mid-19th century English carol “Here We Come A-wassailing” transforming into a warm and joyous rendering of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Good tidings they bring, indeed.
‘Alleluia,’ The Place of the Blest, Part IV, composed by Randall Thompson, performed by the New York City Children’s Choir, from Christmas in New York
Concluding this remarkable album, Randall Thompson’s four-part “The Place of the Best” brings out, well, the best in the choir and the instrumentalists in a delicate balance of poetic evocation and instrumental nimbleness. Thompson, who died at age 85 in 1984, crafted his influential treble voice cantata work from some of his favorite texts including poetry by Robert Herrick in the first and third movements, with a second movement, “Pelican,” apparently being an excerpt from a 12th century bestiary based on the ancient myth of the pelican cast as an allegory on the triumph of restorative love. The concluding meditation on “Alleluia” is a triumph of polyphonic melody—deftly, unerringly and with great depth of feeling rendered with stunning choral precision, bringing the festivities to a close with a moment of soaring feelings and solemn reflection. Again the heart with rapture glows.
