MASTERVOICES: "Sins and Grace"

I had a small epiphany at Alice Tully Hall recently but it passed. Listening to the vocal communion of The MasterVoices Chorus washing over all of us in that room together, I suddenly felt that I was actually hearing a sound that could touch the hearts (wherever they might be) and the souls (such as they may be) of the creeps who currently run our world and the even creepier creeps who support them. This sound of MasterVoices in harmony, these faces of MasterVoices in song — this, I thought, would even touch the creeps — stop them, if only for a breath, from their pursuit of murderous, soulless, hatred-driven venality. Singing like this, with such a purity of purpose, voices reaching as one for something beyond themselves. This sound could bring absolutely everyone together.

Then I rolled up my program and just silently wacked myself in the face.

Not really. But it felt that way, inside my face; in my head. How could anyone not be moved by this beauty?

It wasn’t even such a pointedly moving mix of music that MasterVoices sang this night, though the opener, Fauré’s Requiem, coursed with empathy for our shared state of inexorable loss in this life, a choral chorus of consolation. I felt it. It was lovely, conducted with tenderness by MasterVoices maestro Ted Sperling; responded to with aching accompaniment by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and sung hauntingly by all those Master Voices, plus two divine guest soloists, soprano Mikaela Bennett and baritone Justin Austin. Even the Alice Tully pipe organ got into the act, a feature of Fauré’s chamber version of his Requiem, chosen, by intent, by Mr. Sperling to showcase Alice Tully’s mighty house instrument.

The balance of the evening, formally titled “Sins and Grace,” was all contrast — a devilish series of commissions (each involving that pipe organ) devised by an array of contemporary composers on the subject of “The Seven Deadly Sins.” The music they created was a hoot — witty, wonky, wacky (not literally), profane, profound — all of it gorgeously sung with such undivided purpose.

Composer Will Aronson (currently on Broadway with Maybe Happy Ending) and his lyricist Dolan Morgan, created a chanting chasm of choral desire for the sin of Gluttony: “Hello, it’s us, everything in the world. Let us in.”

Gregory Spears, who has written a fine Requiem of his own, brought his shimmering mastery of overtones to the sin of Vanity in his setting of Ecclesiastes, “The Preacher” preaching (as preachers do): “All is vanity.”

Jason Robert Brown brought down the house with his intimate knowledge of Envy: “Some people study and train for all their lives/Since they were ten,/But they don’t go to Juilliard - /They auditioned for Juilliard/But ended up at another highly esteemed institution/(But it wasn’t Juilliard)/It must be nice to sing the solo.”

Ted Hearne captured Greed via timely anachronism — a delectably fractured musicalization of the 2014 book Stress Test by former-U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner ( remember him! ), as sampled through Google Books.

Composer William C. Banfield and lyricist (solely for this occasion) Michael R. Jackson (a Pulitzer prize-winner for his music, book and lyrics to A Strange Loop) memed Sloth as an all-conquering, data controlling Queen, a monarchical voice in our heads soulfully singing: “Automate your thinking! Stare into your screen!”

Michael Abels conjured Lust as a coital choral piece composed of MasterVoices grunts, sighs and ultimate cries of gratification stimulated by the text: “Hmm?/Hmm./ Uh-hmm./Ah./Oh./Uh-huh.”

Finally, the deliriously gifted Heather Christian gave vent to our Wrath in her characteristic complexity, tearing into Thomas Aquinas’ insistence that “Wrath is sinful but sitting unaffected by moral injustice is the greatest sin.”

It was an evening of musical intelligence, wit and heartfelt emotion. In our moment of MAGAjestic stupidity, sharing it felt like a victory.