SALT LAKE CITY — There’s nothing particularly Mormon, or American, about “Ubi Caritas.” It’s a Gregorian chant at least 11 centuries old, was rearranged by French composer Maurice Durufle in 1960 and has been sung by church choral groups around the world.
But I can tell you that when it is performed by a certain famous choir in a certain quirky old building in downtown Salt Lake City, that melody works a particular magic.
The voices rise and fall, singing a cappella in Latin. The sound ripples to the back of the hall, guided by the curving plaster ceiling. The final “amen” grows to 10, 15, 20 syllables, each one a slow-motion acrobat in flight.
That’s how it went on a recent Sunday morning at the Salt Lake Tabernacle at Temple Square, a singular American music venue commissioned by Brigham Young and completed in 1867.
The 360 singers who call this building home are known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir — or rather, they were until Oct. 5, when leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renamed them the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.
In the world beyond these walls, the group has been needled for its squeaky-clean image and song list, and for performing at President Trump’s inauguration. But the singers are a beloved avatar for the church, offering musical balm for all.
As for the building that houses them, one unimpressed 19th century visitor called it “a pumpkin half-buried in the sand.” To me, as light danced on its aluminum roof, the tabernacle looked like a surfacing submarine.
That shiny roof (a 1947 addition) is a great disguise for a frontier relic and a striking element among the landmark church buildings that make up Temple Square. The site’s singular history is more than enough reason to eavesdrop on choir practice (most Thursday nights) or to see a broadcast performance (every Sunday morning) or to drop by to hear a pin drop (which happens hourly to show off the hall’s acoustics).
A Thursday night rehearsal in the tabernacle, free to the public at 7:30, is a good place to start.
To win a place in this group, singers must belong to the church, be at least 25, no older than 55, and live within 100 miles of Temple Square. Besides an audition, they must pass an interview and music theory test.
Oh, and there is no paycheck; all choir members are volunteers.
The choir formed in 1847 under church president Young. The church itself had been founded less than 20 years before by Joseph Smith in upstate New York.
Mormon pioneers had just begun settling in Utah, and the Salt Lake Valley was nearly empty.
Before long, Young was planning a temple (a tall, stone landmark that took 40 years to complete) and the tabernacle, which would be made of Utah pine, about 75 feet tall, 150 feet wide and 250 feet long, capped by a gently curving roof.
Young worked with local architects and a bridge designer to craft one big room with uninterrupted sightlines and lively acoustics so a preacher’s voice could carry. That meant thinking outside the architectural box.
As you walk the aisles, look closely and you’ll see that the builders painted pine columns to look like marble and disguised pine benches to look like oak. (In the last 20 years, the church has replaced most of the pine benches with oak.)
You’ll also notice the organ, an 11,623-pipe affair that towers behind the choir loft like the bow of a great ship. It isn’t the original but a descendant of one built in the 1860s, using hardware from Boston and pipes carved from more Utah pines.
Most visitors don’t get invited to climb into the rafters, but if you could, you would see 21st century seismic upgrades alongside rawhide skins, which the pioneers tied around split planks to strengthen them. You would also see thousands of organ pipes, mostly clustered above the stage.
Some, known as pioneer pipes, date to the building’s first days and stand as tall as 30 feet, producing tones that seem more seismic than sonic.
For an introduction to the building’s acoustics, visitors may attend the tabernacle’s free daily organ recital (noon Mondays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays). The pin-drop demonstrations also take place, typically every hour on the hour, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The day I watched, organist Linda Margetts dropped three pins, one by one, and then a nail — which resounded like a rifle shot — to show how freely sound travels about 170 feet from the stage to the back row. But I still hadn’t experienced the full tabernacle choir. For that, you need an evening performance or the Sunday morning broadcast of the show that made the choir famous.
On my Sunday morning, men wore dark suits and ties, and women were in beige gowns.
After the countdown to open the broadcast, a narrator welcomed us and organist Richard Elliott leaned over the keyboards. Meanwhile, a sophisticated lighting system threw intense colors onto the curving wall behind the choir — sometimes blue, sometimes purple, sometimes red, which made the gold-leaf organ pipes glow like flames.
Several hymns, folk songs and other pieces followed, including “Ubi Caritas.”
Edgy it was not. But those 360 voices, raised together, were something to hear.
In no time, the broadcast was winding up. It ended with the choir’s voices on “God be with you till we meet again” — predictable, perhaps, but warm and comforting on a winter day. —
— LOS ANGELES TIMES
