Spirituals, Volume 2

Album Review

Singing negro spirituals out of a classically trained background does not always lead to the most persuasive outcome. One expects to hear measurable quantities of passion and poetry from traditional gospel, but also some degree of discernible life experience — an indomitable faith — that most elusive of qualities to convey. Classical preparation, foremost charged with instilling technical and interpretive facility, generally covers the former attributes, but it is not always up to the task of providing the authentic human spark necessary to make believable the soul-firing intensity of the spiritual. Nevertheless, when there is a confluence of the two traditions, the results can be quite compelling, as they indeed are on this lovely collaboration between opera soprano Barbara Hendricks and Southern-steeped vocal chorus the Moses Hogan Singers. This is not the singer's first foray into gospel, but on her previous effort (1984's Barbara Hendricks Sings Spirituals, with piano accompanist Dmitri Alexeev), she essentially treated the spiritual as Western art song, a wonderfully revealing if not exactly orthodox interpretation. Here, however, she taps into the powerful reverence and devotional ardor at the core of these hymns. Hendricks' voice, above all, is gorgeous, a glowing and vulnerable instrument with thrilling range, overflowing with emotion in its upper register. Her intonation and control is virtually flawless here as in her classical work, and she brings a volatile earthiness to her readings. Particularly stirring are "Wade in the Water," "Ain't That Good News," "I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray," "My God Is So High," and "I Stood on the River of Jordan." The sensational Singers are equally impressive. There is an irrepressible spirit of joy in the group's choral singing that seems to spring from a profoundly deep well, and its vocal arrangements add incalculable brushstrokes of color. Hendricks has a few mannered moments that sound awkward in this context. She enunciates perhaps too crisply at times, pricking away some of the potency otherwise built up during a couple of the ensemble songs, and her vibrato, crystalline as it is, doesn't always swing. Picking such nits, however, is being unnecessarily fussy, especially considering the overwhelmingly physical impact of these performances.