Dale Warland Singers - Blue Wheat

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Dale Warland Singers - Blue Wheat

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I might as well just say this up front: "Blue Wheat" is the best choral recording of American folk music since the heady days of the Robert Shaw and Roger Wagner Chorales. As far as I'm concerned, the Dale Warland Singers are the next golden link in the chain of professional American choral groups, and they do have very strong competition. What sets them apart from the rest is a gorgeous, flexible sound, achieved in no small measure by intonation that is not just dead on, but downright ravishing, and clarity of texture helped both by the aforementioned intonation and by razor-sharp rhythm.

Warland uses mostly contemporary arrangers, with a few "classics" thrown in: H. T. Burleigh, Gail Kubik, Robert De Cormier, and the fabulous Alice Parker. All the arrangements, even the unfortunate Edwin Fissinger's for "Skip to My Lou," are first-rate, and some are minor masterpieces. I can't talk about all of them, but I'd like to at least mention some.

H. T. Burleigh, a Black composer who straddled the turn of the century, became an American friend of Dvor(ák's and may have been the first to play for that master the great spirituals. "My Lord, What a Morning" is one of his best arrangements. It pulls off the trick of using very sophisticated, chromatic harmonies to clad a simple tune. "Taste" is the answer, I guess. The harmonies wrap the tune like a warm blanket. Warland's performance rubs elbows with the Shaw Chorales, from their classic RCA LP "Deep River." I can't choose between them.

Gail Kubik's harmonic palette stands at a distance from Burleigh's, much of it based on fifths and fourths, which works to great advantage in "He's Goin' Away." This also applies to Gilbert Martin's "Wayfarin' Stranger," which adds a gorgeous harp part and simple canonic imitation. Both tracks will break your heart.

Some choral afficionados will recognize the name Robert De Cormier, a talented musician whom I believe ran into political trouble to the 1950s and got put on several Guardians of American Liberty's blacklists. The music itself - "Soldier, Soldier" succeeds better than "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier" - shows that you don't need a lot of notes or "touches," as long as you put down the right notes. Mark Keller's vigorous "Hard Times Come Again No More" shows this as well.

My heart skipped a beat or two when I saw the listing of Keller's "Pretty Saro," since I had just finished arranging the tune myself. Fortunately, I had already sent it to the performers and couldn't call it back. Immediately I wondered what he had seen in the tune that I hadn't. It turns out that he figured out what to do with the simplicity of the song - simplicity without sentimentality - while for me, the song triggered memories of other mountain tunes as well.

The big find for me on this CD is Carol Barnett, who contributes three incredible arrangements: "Steal Away," "Red River Valley," and "Deep River." "Steal Away" does amazing things with astounding enharmonic modulations, while keeping the integrity of the tune. It's as if the melody is clothed in a shining robe. I like it even better than Tippett's setting for a Child of Our Time. "Red River Valley" has been mangled and reduced to Jew's-harp triviality by so many bad movie soundtracks, it's all but obliterated the poetry of the original. Barnett reminds you of the time before interstates and jets when going away usually meant going away forever. The singers don't want to let go of the tune, just as the speaker wants to keep the one about to depart. "Deep River" seems to pay homage to the older generation of Spiritual arrangers: Burleigh, Hall Johnson, Roland Hayes, and William Levi Dawson, with perhaps a hint of Michael Tippett. Stunning.

A danger for a group as technically accomplished as the Dale Warland Singers is that the music might be too simple. One nice thing about leaping over the hurdles posed by a difficult piece is that this alone can become the end. Something much simpler gives the performer nothing he's used to chewing on. The simpler the technical requirements, the more immediate the demands on musicianship and artistry. The Dale Warland Singers meet this challenge fully. They are idiomatic, but never patronizing.

In short, spend an hour with some of the greatest tunes in the world, freshly and handsomely arrayed, lovingly sung.