A youthful opener for the chorale

Call it a young man’s Brahms.

Conductor Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale opened their fifth season in Walt Disney Concert Hall on Sunday with a finely realized performance of the composer’s “A German Requiem” that filled the sold-out hall with cathedral sounds and crescendos that could be felt as well as heard.

The 110 voices of the chorus, accompanied by the Los Angeles Master Chorale Orchestra, may have often sacrificed textual clarity as a result, but there were pure sonic compensations.

Evidencing Gershon’s youthful approach, tempos inclined to the fast side, phrases were smoothed and conceived in long breaths, interior contrasts were minimized.

There was no lingering or brooding.

Correspondingly, some shifts from grieving to sweet comfort were flattened out, and other internal details went unexploited.

All the same, there were many sensitive modulations in dynamics, a grand architectural conception and that astonishingly well-honed and blended sound from the singers even in the most complex fugal passages.

In solo duties, Elissa Johnston brought a silvery, vulnerable soprano to “Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit” (Ye are now sorrowful).

Baritone Stephen Powell made an expressive, prayerful advocate for humility in “Herr, lehre doch mich” (Lord, make me to know the measure of my days) and announced the sounding of the Last Trumpet in the Sixth Section with appropriate power.

Gershon opened the program with Beethoven’s rarely heard six-minute cantata, “Meerstille und glucklicke Fahrt” (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage), based on two contrasting poems by Goethe.

In introductory remarks from the stage, Gershon said that, in contrast to our view of it, for an early sailing ship a calm sea was terrifying because it meant being dead in the water.

The chorale sang this part of the work with hushed, even holy, dread and outbursts of anxiety.

When the wind finally picks up and the ship speeds to port, the music turns into one of Beethoven’s zestful, bounding celebrations -- and the chorale responded with fervor and joy.

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