Excerpted from The East Hampton Star
Stirring Concert Pairs Two Commissions
By Eric Salzman
June 30, 2016

The Choral Society of the Hamptons gave a “stirring 70th anniversary finale concert” on Saturday evening at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor.

You’ve heard of the classical “three Bs” — Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Well, there are more than three notable composers whose last names begin with the second letter of the alphabet, and you can include Victoria Bond in that extended list. Ms. Bond, a well-known conductor and music commentator, is also a composer of considerable ingenuity.

The pairing of “The Reluctant Moses,” her new commission, with an old but little-known commission, the Mass in C by Beethoven, was the subject of the stirring 70th anniversary finale concert by the Choral Society of the Hamptons and South Fork Chamber Orchestra under the estimable direction of Mark Mangini, which took place Saturday evening at the 172-year-old Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor.

I have known Victoria Bond and her work for many years and she has conducted my music. I was pleased to have an opportunity to hear this work in its world premiere.

For a subject, Ms. Bond reached back to the Old Testament scene in which Moses encounters the burning bush and the voice of God commanding him to lead his people out of Egypt. In this highly successful modern telling of an ancient story, Moses is a bass accompanied by a bass (a string double bass, that is).

In fact, bass sounds are everywhere in this piece, which includes a bass clarinet, a French horn imitating a bass tuba (according to the composer, intended to evoke the ancient Hebrew shofar), and, of course, the bass section of the chorus which, along with the soprano, alto, and tenor sections, takes the role of the voice of God. The use of bass sounds adds a suitable gravity, but this is, by no means, a bottom-heavy piece. There is a striking and imaginative use of a wide palette of orchestral sound coupled with strong vocal writing that culminates in an emotional, contrapuntal setting of the Ten Commandments.

The bass singer, Joseph Charles Beutel, was not the older, stern Moses we associate with the Old Testament prophet but rather a more youthful, hesitant figure whose dignity was enhanced by John Feeney’s knobby, insistent double bass interventions. Playing God in the burning bush to Ms. Bond’s highly developed musical setting was not an easy assignment for the chorus, but they handled it with the strength and musicality that it deserved.
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Eric Salzman is a composer and writer working mainly in the development of a new music theater. His most recent major theater opera, “Big Jim and the Small-time Investors,” is about a con man who has convinced people to invest in his new invention, a virtual-reality machine. Mr. Salzman’s music can be found on the Labor/Naxos label, and he is the co-author, with Thomas Desi, of “The New Music Theater: Hearing the Body, Seeing the Voice.”