Music and Dance Reviews : Currie Leads Master Chorale at Music Center

John Currie may be a lame duck, but he’s not going to roll over and play dead. Sunday night in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center, the departing music director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, abetted by a solid quartet of soloists and a well-chosen program, led persuasive, spirited performances--perhaps to prove the point.

The first half of the concert featured the premiere of a revised version of “Mid-Winter Songs on Poems by Robert Graves” by the USC-based composer Morten Lauridsen. This elegant and engaging setting of five “winter” poems by the English writer is firmly in the American tradition. The spacious orchestration, jazz rhythms, widely spaced harmonies peppered with sevenths and ninths and intricate, sinewy counterpoint are recognizable points of reference.

Its ready accessibility is not derived from its sources, however, but from the direct and effective setting of the words, the use of brief, unifying melodic fragments and the evocative backdrop provided by the orchestra. Currie led a dramatically shaped and technically competent performance.

He concluded the program with Haydn’s “Mass in Time of War,” a work whose joyousness belies its title. The Master Chorale captured its full exuberance with a big, bright, well-balanced sound and emphatic phrasing. The solo quartet--soprano Cynthia Westphal Johnson, mezzo Paula Rasmussen, tenor Bruce Johnson, baritone Peter Van Derick--were particularly well-matched, and provided serene, mellifluous contrast. The orchestra supported with vitality, though it occasionally lagged.

The concert began with a sprightly, rough-hewn account of the brief “Magnificat” attributed to, but not unquestionably by, Pergolesi.