If the classical crossover movement has produced some wonderful cultural fusions, it has also bred the cynicism that classical music is sometimes being redefined for commercial purposes. How else should we greet the arrival of The Prayer Cycle, a new album featuring unlikely collisions between the English Chamber Orchestra and Chorus, Alanis Morissette, James Taylor and Linda Rondstadt? Perhaps anticipating this thesis, Sony Classical has opted to direct its marketing attention instead to composer Jonathan Elias, best known previously for his diverse but decidedly obscure career in Hollywood films (Children of the Corn, Two Moon Junction). Elias’s scores have never suggested a latent concert-hall talent in the manner of, say, John Williams or Elliot Goldenthal. And yet, for all of these reservations, his choral symphony is an intermittently attractive work.
In the booklet-notes, the composer explains how the cycle reflects his pessimistic perspective on contemporary life. ‘As I worked,’ Elias writes, ‘my personal views inspired dark visions of where I think we, globally, are heading. And I found that prayer is what we turn to when the only thing we have left is hope.’ The result is a liturgy of nine adagio meditations in both strophic and through-composed settings, performed in a variety of languages (French, Latin, Urdu, Swahili). The framework is established immediately with ‘Mercy’, a spiritual dialogue between the fiery, confessional Morissette (singing in Hungarian) and Malinese vocalist Salif Keita. Other highlights include the amassed choral forces of the Morricone-esque ‘Strength’, the ethereal melody for boy soprano that opens ‘Hope’, and the idyllic, quasi-secular conversation between singer James Taylor and guitarist John Williams in ‘Grace’.
Elias’s unaesthetic scoring consists of broad symphonic and world-music gestures, with pastoral, renaissance-style wind passages interpolated within the fabric (for example, at 1'21'' of ‘Mercy’). Unfortunately, the dramatic arc of the cycle is diminished by the homogeneous tonal quality of each movement, a lack of musical complexity and the overriding pallor of the text. For all of Elias’s claims about hope, The Prayer Cycle ultimately delivers more pain than salvation. '