Choral Society Concert Runneth Over
by Joan Reinthaler, The Washington Post
June 9, 1997

There are dangers inherent in too much of a good thing and, on several different levels, the concert that the Fairfax Choral Society presented at the National City Christian Church yesterday proved this.

Two pieces of unusual interest shared the spotlight: the premiere of of a Missa Brevis by local composer and percussionist Joseph Jay McIntyre and a performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams's "Five Mystical Songs" with baritonist Jason Stearns as soloist. But the road to these rewards ran via a Handel Cornonation Anthem, a Haydn Missa Brevis, a Mozart motet, a Beethoven elegy and a major organ work by Durufle (all performed with confidence, poise and solid musicianship if with a muted sense of drama), and by the time the ensemble got to McIntyre's new piece, the musical taste buds were on their way to being sated. Conductor Douglas Mears could well have cut a piece from each half of the program and had a smashing concert left over.

McIntyre has scored his Mass for chorus, organ, timpani, vibraphone, cymbals, chimes, drums and gongs (really a percussion concerto with chorus and organ accompaniment), and it is clear that he knows how to write for these forces. He has managed to achieve balances that allow the musicians to cooperate rather than compete, and his vocal lines for the most part are as idiomatic as the percussion material. But McIntyre has squeezed more ideas into this score than it can comfortably support--good and intriguing ideas but they get in each other's way and, ultimately, they detract from the effect the piece ought to have. This is another case where less might be much more and some pruning would help.

Jason Stearns and the Chorus collaborated on a first-rate performance of the five Vaughn Williams songs and Mears paced them beautifully.