The Esoterics, a virtuoso chamber choir based in Seattle, is dedicated to the performance and propagation of contemporary a cappella choral music. The choir, founded by conductor
Eric Banks in the mid-'90s, also performs older music, and on this CD he ventures back to the closing years of the nineteenth century to include a setting of Ave Maria by
Verdi. The CD collects diverse pieces set to texts honoring the Virgin Mary. In almost every work, the choir demonstrates an extraordinarily high musical standard -- pure and focused tone, unerring intonation, and a scrupulous attention to the ebb and flow of the musical line. The works here are for the most part rarities, outside the usual repertoire of American chamber choirs, but are largely harmonically and structurally conventional. It is in the less conventional works that the choir's virtuosity is on full display. The group projects the glowing, undulating tone clusters of
Rautavaara's Canticum Mariae Virginis with an ease and dreaminess that perfectly contrasts with the dramatic and angular melodies that hover above. British composer
Giles Swayne's eccentrically pseudo-Medieval/Renaissance Magnificat exploits the device of hocketing -- breaking up the melody among several voices to create a sense of rhythmic disjunction -- to dazzling effect, and the choir nails it beautifully.