More Than Pretty Faces

VIENNA CHOIR BOYS

Symphony Hall

BankBoston Celebrity Series

October 23, 1998

How could a choir boy in the 17th century achieve fame and fortune? He could sing soprano--for life. Castration performed before the onset of puberty would produce a sound in a boy that blended the sweetness of a soprano with the bravado of a bass. Self-mutilation might have closed the door to one world, but it opened the door to another--entrance into the most elite singing coteries in Europe.

But not all boys were up for irreversible commitments. And luckily, they did not need to be. Some of Europe's most prestigious church choirs offered fame to the anatomically-intact. The Vienna Choir Boys, for instance, would train boys between the ages of 10 and 14 to sing with a sublime sweetness that was thought to rival the song of angels. Although we do not hear too much about the castrati today, boy choirs have retained their popularity. Last Friday, the Vienna Choir Boys, as witness to this popularity, came to Symphony Hall to celebrate their 500th anniversary.

As the 24 Vienna Choir Boys filed onstage in white sailor suits and bowl-shaped haircuts, the audience gasped and cooed. But these boys were more than pretty faces. They were poised to reverse any preconceptions about 10-year-old singers that we might have formed during our own disjointed renditions of The Twelve Days of Christmas and O Come All Ye Faithful in primary school. As the Vienna Choir Boys performed a sophisticated repertoire of Haydn, Isaak, Bruckner, Schubert, Salieri and Mozart, they brought fifth graders to rare musical heights. But while the concert was supposed to promote the talent of child singers, it might have inadvertently done something else--and affirmed the supremacy of adults.

The choir boys performed a concert that was technically rich, but spiritually empty. Those of us with even the most paltry choral experiences remember exhortations from former conductors to "Sing as if you mean it!" and "Look like you're enjoying yourself!" The premise is simple: if a choir is not engaged in what it is singing, an audience won't be either.

And yet, despite their prodigious talent, such conviction was conspicuously absent from the concert. The choir boys opened with Haydn's Te Deum in C Major, a sparkling piece with a quick tempo assured to enliven the audience. While the Chorus Viennensis was robust and energetic (this was the older choir of supporting tenors and basses who rounded out the four-part treble scale), the Vienna Choir Boys sounded withered and disengaged. They found Haydn's notes, but groped for his meaning. The boys sang the first line, "We praise thee, O God!" ambivalence nearer to pity than joy--and set a lackluster pattern for the remainder of the piece.

Their second selection, Heinrich Isaak's Motet Virgo Prudentissima, seemed by contrast to start off with redemption. In a slower, more contemplative tempo, the choir boys looked ready to shine. Without being drowned out by the older choir, the sopranos and altos united in the production of haunting, luscious strains that, for a fleeting moment, transmogrified Symphony Hall into St. Peter's Basilica. But once the basses and tenors in the older choir joined in, the younger choir boys lost their nerve. This led to technical difficulty between the sopranos and basses. Ideally, their voice parts should have slid over as seamlessly as silk over satin; instead, they dragged like sandpaper over cement.

This pattern of inconsistency continued. When the choir boys sang Schubert's Psalm No.23, they achieved some exquisite moments of technical flawlessness--and others of bored inertia. The choir boys were not in want of technical skills; only interpretive ones. Psalm No. 23 is a prayer of peace for someone who has realized that his life is in the hands of God. But an audience member might have known nothing about the meaning of the song--and the joy of love or the anticipation of heaven--if the lyrics had not been printed in the program.

Just when it seemed impossible to assess the Vienna Choir Boys without adding some qualification (i.e. they were good--for little boys), they sang their finale, Mozart's Mass in C Major and forged such a herculean comeback, it was as though another choir had donned their white sailor suits during intermission. Not only did the choir boys sing the sacred prayer with everything on target--their key, their inflections, even their infusion of reverence--but the choir introduced a soloist who sent a shiver down the spine of every patron in Symphony Hall. Terence Wey, a boy of no more than 14 years of age, sang the prayer with a passion and penitence that could have touched the most phlegmatic atheist. Wey's shrill reverberations outshone the rest of the choir and were responsible for evoking an applause more thunderous than any of the tepid clapping earlier in the program.

But while the Vienna Choir Boys had their ups and downs, it was difficult to depart feeling disheartened. Although they did not achieve the standard of an adult choir, it might have been unreasonable to have expected them to. The Vienna Choir Boys were consummate professionals, but as they exited the stage, large boyish grins betrayed their young age. The Vienna Choir Boys might not have been perfect, but there was something about them that, indeed, was angelic.