MUSIC REVIEW : A Sublime, Silly Chanticleer

A dozen male voices strong and polished to a handsome gleam, the San Francisco-based vocal group Chanticleer knows its business. Textural purity and pristine execution are the hallmarks of the group, together since 1978, and they have helped advance the state of the vocal art.

But when the ensemble, which appeared Saturday in Irvine with a different program, came to the Wadsworth Theater on Sunday, it had less serious matters on the collective mind. A program bearing the heading “In the Madrigal Tradition” swerved freely from depth to froth, from the 16th Century to the late 1980s.

Variety isn’t always a good thing. The change of cultural altitude was a bit unsettling as the singers shifted from the deep, timeless glow of Monteverdi to Peter Schickele’s “Go for Broke: A Comedy for Chorus.”

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After opening music by Palestrina, comprising randy biblical texts and beatific sonorities, Adriano Banchieri’s “Festino” of 1608 was the concert’s first romp, a madrigal comedy replete with animal noises and drunken reveling.

Closing the first half with this program’s memorable highlight, Monteverdi’s mournful “Lagrime d’amante al sepolcro dell’amata (sestina),” proved a model of fragile emotions and exquisite formal design. Unfortunately, the context didn’t complement the sublimity very well.

For the contemporary works of the second half, the group’s dress code lightened up, as the singers traded formal wear for white pants and colored coats. William Hawley’s “Seven Madrigals,” written in 1986, is an appealing enough work, in conservative, Renaissance-inflected tonal language.

They pulled out the stops, broke out the wardrobe and props, and generally put on the shtick for Schickele’s silly little fable about a certain John Q. Public. Mr. Public’s fate turns from golden--winning the lottery--to forlorn. The tax man cometh, then charitable causes, and then money-hungry relatives.

Happy endings, however, haven’t gone out of style here. Schickele has pieced the tale together with wink-wink cleverness on various levels.

It was a mixed bag of a show. But Chanticleer is plainly a group with an admirable mission and a well-honed ensemble voice, whether it’s out to entertain or enlighten.