8 p.m., Carnegie Hall, (212) 247-7800; $20 to $100. (Eichler) MUSICA SACRA (Sunday and Tuesday) Richard Westenburg's account of Handel's "Messiah" has traditionally been robust and deeply felt, not to mention performed by one of New York's most finely polished choirs.
Though Monday's performance of Brahms's "German Requiem" benefited from the richly polished Bavarian Radio Choir and the light yet creamy soprano of Christiane Karg, it, like "Parsifal," impressed without making its full potential impact.
For the occasion, Helen Cha-Pyo, the associate director of music at the church, conducted the Riverside Festival Singers, a well-polished 28-voice choir that sang with both the robustness demanded by the Vaughan Williams works, including his contrapuntal and harmonically updated arrangement of "Greensleeves," and the suppleness required by Sir John's gentle hymns.
There's also a not-so-polished 37-person choir, regularly scheduled Nerf gun wars between departments, and "Zappendales," the occasional show comprised of male dancers with less-than-chiselled abs.
December 18 2011 Dennis Keene leads his elegant and polished Voices of Ascension choir in a selection of serious Christmas fare — Nativity motets by Victoria, Palestrina, and Sweelinck, as well as classics by Mendelssohn (the glorious "Weihnachten"), Bruckner, and Rachmaninoff and a new work by Nico Muhly.
The orchestra, abetted by its choir, produced a polished, shimmering sound in both works.
It seems more an orchestra of individuals than it used to be, certainly during the Herbert von Karajan years, when sonorities were polished and wind and brass choirs balanced to within an inch of their lives.
Just under two decades ago he started the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space series at the Church of St . Ignatius Loyolaand quickly turned its resident choir into a finely polished, stylistically nimble ensemble.
With the hall back in service, this occasional series resumed on Saturday evening, when the British conductor Ivor Bolton led the finely polished Concerto Köln, the Balthasar Neumann Choir and a solid slate of soloists in a vital account of "Athalia," Handel's third English oratorio.
And the stay-aways also missed the tremendous Guildhall School Chorus, 12 polished young performers who showed the LSO choir a thing or two about intonation and dynamics.
