Driving the choir

In kinder, gentler times, as a general description, “to drive the choir” might conjure images of the conductor, politely, with humor and good will, pointing toward the far horizon, reminding choristers of their responsibilities and generally steering in the proper direction. Then, short weeks before performance time, the metaphor explodes-- the conductor rips off the nice face, pitches his speaking voice a little louder and higher, and really drives the choir—as in, a barking dog nipping at their ankles, occasionally tearing hair and drawing blood, until they are either safely in their pen, or over a cliff and splattered on the rocks below. Chorale has entered the latter kind of drive. This Rautavaara piece is HARD. Every eighth note in the darned thing has its own incomprehensible Finnish syllable-- and these syllables go on without interruption, eighth note after eighth note, page after page. After a while, sixty singers, chattering at once, sound more like chipmunks than like vocally gifted adults intoning a prayerful text. I have to wonder what this is like for Finns—they probably rip thoughtlessly through this stuff, and wonder what the fuss is about. For non-Finns, making sense of this piece for ourselves is immensely difficult. Not for a moment do I, or any of the singers, doubt the work’s value: Vigilia has masterwork written all over it. A word I have come to hate over the past few years is really the best descriptor: AWESOME. Take Pärt, Gorecki, Tavener, Hovhaness, the lot of them, shake them up together, skim off the cream that rises to the top, put it way up North where the sun doesn’t shine, and you have Rautavaara. I am head over heels with this piece.

As if this were the only thing on our program… The Shchedrin movements feel like opera chorus crowd scenes-- huge, long lines, impossibly slow tempi. Music for the rebirth of the world. Our Slavic language coach, Slava Gorbachov, came to rehearsal last week and told us our [l]s were too jolly and light. To satisfy him, we have to choke on our own tongues… And sandwiched between these monstrous challenges, we have this delicate Lalique crystal Poulenc motet—that’ll be a ppp high A flat, sopranos, thank you. Oh, and the Paulus motet—tone clusters down in the grumbly part of everyone’s voice; if they are wrong, they are wrong, and they sound wrong; no hiding behind “atmospheric.”

So the next few weeks will be hell for Chorale. I fear there is no other way to get it done.

Why "The Sealed Angel"?

Though one of Russia’s most important composers of the second half of the twentieth century, Rodion Shchedrin is not well-known in the United States. His “liturgical cantata,” The Sealed Angel, was first performed in this country in May 1990 by the New England Conservatory Camerata and the Longy Chamber Singers under the direction of Lorna Cooke deVaron. Portions of the following are extracted from that performance’s program notes: Rodion Shchedrin was born in Moscow on December 16, 1932. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory where he took courses in piano with Yakov Flier and composition with Yuri Shaporin. Following graduation, he achieved great recognition within the accepted Soviet establishment. He wrote about current trends in Soviet music in official publications and held several significant posts within the Composer's Union, including chairman of the Russian Federation section. He received numerous awards, and was made a People's Artist of the USSR in 1981. Shchedrin has settled abroad since the break-up of the Soviet Union, and has homes in Munich and Moscow. His early works are written in an orthodox Soviet idiom. In the 1960s Shchedrin began incorporating different styles of music, such as Neoclassicism, pop music and jazz. In the 1970s, he found his personal synthesis. His music spans a broad range of styles, from engaging, folk-based melodies to atonal techniques of the West.

Shchedrin composed The Sealed Angel, also known as ‘Russian Liturgy,’ in 1988, in commemoration of the millennium of the Christianization of Russia. It received its premier that same year, and was awarded the Russian State Prize in 1992 by President Boris Yeltsin.

Shchedrin came from a religious background; his grandfather was a priest, and his parents raised him with knowledge of their historic Orthodox faith. He attended the Moscow Choir School between the ages of 12 and 18, where the pupils were introduced to the great liturgies of the 18th and 19th centuries with secular texts. With this ‘Russian Liturgy,’ which utilizes Old Slavonic sacred texts, he wanted to compose a work which would resume the tradition of Russian Orthodox music that had been interrupted by the 1917 Revolution. The Perestroika of the mid 1980’s seemed to offer this opportunity.

Shchedrin specifies that sections of the short story by Nikolai Leskov (1831 - 1895) called "The Sealed Angel" be read to the audience amid the nine movements which make up the choral part of The Sealed Angel. The texts of the movements are liturgical but have been adapted by Shchedrin. "The Sealed Angel" was written by Leskov in 1872. The story describes a group of people in 18th-century Russia who belonged to the sect called the Old Believers.

In the mid-17th century the Russian Orthodox patriarch Nikon came into violent conflict with the Russian Tsar Alexis. As head of the Church, Nikon decided that all of the Russian religious texts and icons should be cleaned up ridding them of the errors, which have been introduced over the centuries of copying. A group formed known as the Old Believers disapproved of the reform; they regarded the religious texts as sacred documents transmitted from God. In 1656, a church council sanctioned the Nikon reforms and ordered that the Old Believers be banned or imprisoned. Nikon was deposed in 1666, but the Russian church retained his reforms and anathematized those who continued to oppose them. The next major religious reform took place under Peter the Great in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It was Peter who did away with the office of patriarch and changed his title from Tsar to Emperor, the ruler of both church and state. Peter the Great and the rulers who followed began importing foreign art. Models from the West offered new modes of art for religious objects, and the long history of the Russian icon came to an end with the exception of the devout Old Believers. Their icons were painted by their own artists who followed in the footsteps of the old masters. The Orthodox Church and the Tsar's authorities persecuted the dissenters by raiding their homes and coating their icons with sealing wax and taking them away. The Old Believers formed a vigorous body of dissenters within the Russian Orthodox Church for the next two centuries. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Russian government did away with the secular legislation that forbade the practices of the Old Believers and encouraged all the underground units to come out into the open. For many decades, Old Believers flourished, especially in Moscow. They collected old icons and even had them scientifically restored.

Nikolai Leskov himself was a connoisseur and collector of icons. "The Sealed Angel" was written in the studio of an old icon painter. He admired the Old Believers' stubborn tenacity, but he recognized the fact that their fanaticism resisted real progress.

In his story a group of Old Believers are working together to build a stone bridge over the Dniepr River in Ukraine, under the supervision of an English engineer, whom they called Yakov Yakovlevich. The authorities raid the special wagon where the icons of these Old Believers are set up for their worship; they throw wax seals on the icons and confiscate them. The Old Believers are heartbroken at the loss of their beloved icon of a shining angel, which they believe absolutely was guiding their lives. They hire an icon painter named Sebastian, who steals into the side of the monastery where the confiscated icon is held, makes a tracing of the original, and paints a duplicate icon. When Sebastian has finished, a trio of the Old Believers steals the true icon and the artist removes the wax seal from the angel's countenance. After placing a wax seal on the duplicate, they take it, during an evening service, which occupies all within the monastery, to the side chapel to replace the original. As they pass it through the window, they discover that the seal has come off the counterfeit icon. When evening service ends, a remorseful Luka Kirrilov, their leader, confesses to the Bishop their plan and its denouement. The bishop, saying that the Church's angel (the copy) is more holy than the original because it removed its own seal, persuades Luka to join the established Church. Luka agrees to do so and all his fellow Old Believers follow him.

Shchedrin’s work is in no way programmatic, but it does explore the most ancient practices and liturgies of the Orthodox Church in its musical materials. Shchedrin named the work after this story, rather than identifying it as a sacred work, to avoid the state censorship which persisted at the time of its composition.

The complete work consists of nine movements; Chorale will present only the last two.

From Einojuhani Rautavaara's foreword to his All-Night Vigil

“The All-Night Vigil was jointly commissioned by the Helsinki Festival and the Orthodox Church of Finland. It was premiered at divine service in the Uspenski Cathedral in Helsinki, the Evening Service in 1971 and the Morning Service in 1972 [Chicago Chorale will present only the Evening Service portion]. “The All-Night Vigil ultimately stems from a vision-inducing childhood visit to the island monastery of Valamo in the middle of Lake Ladoga just before the Winter War in 1939; after that war Valamo no longer belonged to Finland. It seemed to me that the islands floated on air, and more and more colourful domes and towers appeared between the trees. The bells began to ring, the low tolling booms and the shrill tintinnabulation: the world was full of sound and colour. Then the black-bearded monks in their robes, the high vaulted churches, and the saints, kings and angels in icons…These images dazzled my ten-year-old mind and lodged in my sub-conscious, to re-emerge fifteen years later in the piano cycle Icons (Ikonit) and again three decades later when I was commissioned to set the Orthodox divine service, or All-Night Vigil. The archaic, darkly decorative and somehow merrily melancholy holy texts affected me deeply. By coincidence, the date set for the performance was the Festival of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. The proper texts for that day had unbelievable, naively harsh and mystically profound passages.

“No instruments are used in divine services in the Orthodox church, not even the organ. Because of this, I wanted to use the choir in as varied a way as possible. There are numerous solos, most importantly the opening basso profondo; there are also tenor, soprano and alto [and baritone] soloists appearing singly and in pairs. The choir not only sings but speaks and whispers too. It sings in clusters and glissandi (a traditional feature of the ancient Byzantine liturgy). There is also a ‘pedal bass’ group that frequently sinks to a subterranean low B flat; the liturgical recitation features microintervals, and so on. In fact, this All-Night Vigil is closer in spirit and expression to the ancient and lost world of Byzantine chant than to the newer Russian chant which was not established as the accepted style until the 19th century.

“The patron saint of this All-Night Vigil, St. John the Baptist, is specifically referred to in the dramatic bass solos 0f the Sticheron of Invocation and the Irmosses. The variation technique I have used binds and structures all sections and songs of the work together into a vast mosaic. In the midst stand two figures: St. John the Baptist and the Virgin, Mother of God. They are surrounded by the apostolic congregation and on the periphery—through the mystery of ecumenical unity—by all of Christendom and all of Western culture.”

Chicago Chorale is now in its sixth week of rehearsing this extraordinary, electrifying work. We have a daunting task—to coach and learn the Finnish pronunciation; to discover and rehearse the word and phrase accents which determine the piece’s constantly shifting metrical structure; to become familiar with Rautavaara’s wholly personal, compelling harmonic language; and, for the soloists, to learn to sing in the cracks between the half and whole steps to which they are accustomed. Along the way, we are discovering that the All-Night Vigil is not some difficult oddity, intended to stump performers and listeners alike; rather, it is fantastic, dramatically engaging work, which achieves, through passages of tender beauty as well as great, tragic power, a grandeur and universality seldom encountered in a purely a cappella work.

Finnish language coaching

I met last week with Chorale’s Finnish language coach, Elina Hartikainen, preparing for our performance of Rautavaara’s Vigilia in December. Elina is fully bi-lingual, and able to address very specifically the difficulties Americans encounter pronouncing Finnish. Working with her powerfully brings to the fore, an issue I have struggled with for years: languages are not just collections of sounds, sorted and ordered differently depending on the language at hand. Speaking only of mechanical sound production—each is an entire physical system, with its own peculiar inner structure, its own shape, its coordination, it’s innumerable details. Gérard Souzay sings his native language, French, beautifully; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau does similarly with German. In one anothers languages, however, each of these great artists sounds peculiarly out of his element, despite extraordinary talent, years of study, and the supposed universality of musical beauty and expression. Classical singers, especially Americans, are expected, with the aid of the International Phonetic Alphabet, to sing all the major European languages perfectly, often four or five of them in a solo performance lasting an hour and a half; does our American-ness make us better at this, than Fischer-Dieskau? Elina tells me that when she returns to Finland and resumes speaking Finnish regularly, she suffers through weeks of laryngitis-- that her entire inner system has to adjust before she can pronounce her native language painlessly and without stress. This reminded me of an occasion, twenty-some years ago, when I sang chorus for an excerpt from Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov—rehearsals with the language coach were excruciating; the depth of sound he wanted from us, combined with forward ring, threatened to ruin my voice before we ever got on stage for the performance. That coach, like Elina, was not a singer; his concern was with the perceived authenticity of the sound, not with translating vocal sensations into the sort of fakes and substitutions a singer uses to “pass.” I felt some despair, going through the Rautavaara text with her-- how would I ever get Chorale to sound like a bunch of Finns? When I sang this work with Bella Voce, several years ago, this fine ensemble accomplished only an approximation of basic sounds, something that bothered me throughout the run of our performances; dare I hope for something better from Chorale’s singers?

Well— two responses come to mind. One: as an unpaid group, Chorale can afford plenty of rehearsal time to coach language; and Chorale’s singers, highly educated and conscientious, will readily apply themselves to this problem. For the other, I refer back to the question with which I ended my first paragraph, above. Does our American-ness make us better at this, than Fischer-Dieskau? Conventional, practical wisdom would have it that, indeed, Americans singers are very good at counterfeiting other languages. Though we are shameful monoglots as a nation, that tiny percentage of us who are classical singers are expected to learn and sing in languages other than English. The majority of the repertoire we sing, in fact, is not in English; from the very beginning of private vocal study, with G. Schirmer’s Twenty-four Italian Songs and Arias, we are taught and coached in something Richard Miller called the “Western International style,” and are expected to develop the flexibility and the ear to be saleable in a variety of languages and styles. We have very little indigenous “classical” repertoire; singing in English, sadly, is a pretty specialized niche for an American singer. Chorale’s singers do not have the extensive training that, say, the members of an all-professional choir would have; but most of them have studied voice, and share in this typical American vocal culture.

Finally, it is far easier for a group of singers, than for an individual, to make a believable sound in an unfamiliar language. Like violins in an orchestra, we fit together as a unit, canceling out the idiosyncrasies of the individuals among us. Effective language coaching for a choir largely consists of focusing on typical patterns of sound production, typical colors and gestures, in addition to individual details. If we can accomplish that, with Elina’s help, I believe we will satisfy our listeners.

If music be the food of love...

My garden is a plot of land about one hundred feet long east to west and four feet deep, sandwiched between an alley to the south and a wrought iron fence to the north. Sunlight is good; water is easily accessible. Other than that, it was a wasteland of post-construction garbage and fill when I began working on it, five years ago—chunks of concrete, old bricks, lengths of rusted rebar, broken glass; random pockets of gravel, sand, and clay; volunteer Chinese elms, ailanthus, and mulberries competing with weeds for the available soil. Cars and trucks had parked on the southern edge of it for years, creating an iron-hard apron about a foot wide. One of my more onerous tasks, in fact, has been to convince drivers to stop parking on what I bravely called my garden. It took, and takes, working like the proverbial dog to turn this wasteland into a garden. Starting with a patch about fifteen feet long in the middle, and working east and west from there over the following years, I have dug and grubbed and hauled, to come up with something resembling friable soil; I collect bags of grass clippings and leaves from the curbs and alleys in the neighborhood; I haul buckets of horse manure from the police stables south of us; I compost in a pile, in a bin, and directly in the “garden” itself. My rules are: spend no money, apply no chemical fertilizers or pesticides, use locally available soil-building materials. I have never hired a backhoe to rip out what was there, leaving a hole into which a hired truck could dump expensive, prime topsoil stripped off a farm downstate; I use what is at hand. Year by year I work this patch of earth, and it responds by coming to life, producing an abundance of flowers, fruits, and vegetables, attracting birds and worms and insects, enriching my life as well as the lives of my family and my neighbors. I feel I am doing very much the same thing my gardening forbears did, first in northern Europe, then on the Minnesota prairie-- of necessity, developing the skills to deal with the givens of a situation, and coming to love that situation, in all its particularity.

Choirs and gardens are very similar. One can garden very differently than I do, and buy/achieve spectacular results; one can also buy, if one has the money and the inclination, the components of a spectacular choir, recruiting and paying large amounts of money for the most talented, skilled, trained singers, then exercising a certain type of leadership and skill in coordinating these expensive components, and creating a winning choir/garden.

I first drifted into, then found myself firmly committed to, the life and ideals described in my metaphor. Chicago Chorale’s singers are hardly so raw as the materials out of which I have built my garden; but they are, like the components of the garden, the materials at hand-- the people who show up and want to sing good music with one another. Making them into a choir is work. But could there be a better work? To combine the disparate and often disconnected materials that surround one, into an interlocking whole, to create community where none existed previously, community committed to discovering and building and sharing beauty, is immensely rewarding and inspiring. There cannot be a more necessary or worthwhile enterprise, than that people come together in this way, to make music well with and for one another, while all around us the world seems incomprehensibly driven toward ugliness and destruction.

I obsess about potential garden materials going into landfills; I also obsess about music that goes unsung, and about singers who go unsinging and unheard. When we work together on the highest level of which we are capable, we know that making music is somehow the salvation of our world. It is not only worth listening to, but worth living for.

Summer Reading

Cut and pasted from the Facebook profile of an archaeologist: In the elder days of art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part For the Gods see everywhere.

This fits neatly with the central thesis of a book I just finished reading, Evenings in the Palace of Reason, by James R. Gaines—which seems to be, Why compose music? Gaines affects an entertaining tone, but is serious about his subject, which he presents through comparative biographies of J.S. Bach and Frederick the Great. Gaines sets up a contrast between the two men, as exemplars of medieval Christian mysticism on one hand, and Enlightenment reason and virtual atheism on the other. One point he makes very effectively, is, that Bach composed music to glorify God, while Frederick, a proponent of the newer galant style, asked of music only that it be immediately attractive and pleasing. I enjoyed the book; as a work of “creative nonfiction,” it memorably fleshes out the personalities and times of its protagonists, and probably doesn’t stray too far from its sources (which are carefully listed and annotated following the text). Gaines clearly has deep feeling and affinity for Bach and his music .

My usual procedure in preparing a major concert (such as Chorale’s upcoming B Minor Mass) is to read several books about the works and composers to be presented, to gain a feel for the context, the religious and emotional matrix out of which they spring. Gaines’ book alone would not give a sufficiently balanced background; but l have several more books to read before I am done.

Back to the verse with which I began: I wonder if Bach could even have existed, and his music ever have happened, if he were not motivated by deep, all-inclusive belief in an absolute eternal. Why else would one work so hard, pursue such astounding standards? And I find that Bach’s music is the standard and filter through which I evaluate and select other music I care about and perform. When it comes to church music specifically, I am left out completely by most of what I hear -- music which seems to say, let’s make both faith and worship sufficiently attractive that potential worshipers won’t be turned away. And though Chorale does not perform, specifically, music for worship, it does seek to present music which reflects the very best that human art and skill have to offer. The thesis that Bach, and the other composers upon whom we concentrate, are motivated in their efforts by something more profound than attractiveness and celebration of their own skill, makes perfect sense to me. At one point in his text, Gaines differentiates between the attractive and the beautiful in Bach’s work-- and I often find myself asking the same thing of music as I evaluate it and place it in different piles: will this become thin and cheap with time? Will I be embarrassed to have put so much effort into preparing something which finally hasn’t all that much substance? Will the expectations of my singers, and their audience, be lowered because I have chosen the pretty rather than the beautiful?

A few years ago, Helmuth Rilling conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, on short notice, in performances of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. I sang in the chorus; and after one of our performances I went out with him and his wife, Martina, to talk about the experience, and about the years I have enjoyed singing under him at the Oregon Bach Festival. He asked me, “Why do you return each year?” My answer was obvious and immediate—the repertoire. I want to be involved with great music; that involvement motivates my efforts. I have given that same answer at every point in my musical life—why learn to sing/play/conduct? Not because people are pleased with the result; but because there is great music, “wrought with greatest care in each minute and unseen part,” to be sung and played. I am compelled to do my best, in seeking it out, and in presenting it. And so far, at least, I have been able to drag Chorale along with me.

Preliminary Notes on Chorale's December 11-12 Concerts

Vigilia (1971-72) Einojuhani Rautavaara 1928- Einojuhani Rautavaara is perhaps the best known contemporary Finnish composer. His romantic, mystical style is exemplified in his Vigilia in memory of St. John the Baptist, a complete setting of the Orthodox liturgies of Vespers and Matins. The piece was inspired by a childhood visit to the island monastery of Valamo in Finland's Lake Ladoga, that remained in the composer's mind as an overwhelming vision of domes, bells, and icons. Rautavaara’s stirring music has a raw, visceral, yet euphoric quality, totally unique in twentieth century a cappella repertoire.

Rautavaara composed the two sections of Vigilia for separate events, and later combined them into a single concert work. Chorale will present the first part, Vespers, in its entirety, with bass Wilbur Pauly intoning the deacon’s part, and a quartet of soloists, as well as the rest of the ensemble. The composer utilizes the choir in as varied a way as possible—they sing, speak and whisper, occasionally in clusters and glissandi, traditional features of ancient Byzantine liturgy.

Salve Regina (1941) Francis Poulenc 1899-1963

Widely recognized as France’s most important mid-twentieth century composer, Francis Poulenc was described as "half monk, half delinquent" ("le moine et le voyou"). His a cappella motet Salve Regina, like most of his choral music, reflects the former tendency. Especially from the 1930’s onward, the loss of close friends, coupled with a pilgrimage to the Black Virgin of Rocamadour in 1936, led him to rediscover the Roman Catholic faith in which he was raised, and prompted a sizeable number of choral compositions based on religious themes.

Salve Regina captures the essence of Poulenc’s life-transforming experience upon encountering the basalt figurine of the Black Virgin in southern France-- the mysterious, timeless, incantatory quality evoked by this faceless, ancient invitation to kneel and worship.

The Sealed Angel (1988) Rodion Shchedrin 1932-

Shchedrin composed The Sealed Angel, also known as ‘Russian Liturgy,’ in 1988, in commemoration of the millennium of the Christianization of Russia. It received its premier that same year, and was awarded the Russian State Prize in 1992 by President Boris Yeltsin.

Shchedrin came from a religious background; his grandfather was a priest, and his parents raised him with knowledge of their historic Orthodox faith. He attended the Moscow Choir School between the ages of 12 and 18, where the pupils were introduced to the great liturgies of the 18th and 19th centuries with secular texts. With this ‘Russian Liturgy,’ which utilizes Old Slavonic sacred texts, he wanted to compose a work which would resume the tradition of Russian Orthodox music that had been interrupted by the 1917 Revolution. The Perestroika of the mid 1980’s seemed to offer this opportunity.

The work is loosely based on The Sealed Angel, a short novel by 19th Century writer Nikolai S. Leskov. It concerns a community of "Old Believers," whose greatest treasure is a miraculous icon of an angel. The prohibited sect is denounced to the state, and the official seal is embossed onto the middle of the confiscated angel’s face. Shchedrin’s work is in no way programmatic, but it does explore the most ancient practices and liturgies of the Orthodox Church in its musical materials. Shchedrin named the work after this story, rather than identifying it as a sacred work, to avoid the state censorship which persisted at the time of its composition.

The compete work consists of nine movements; Chorale will present only the last two.

And Give us Peace (2010) Stephen Paulus 1949-

Celebrated American composer Stephen Paulus is best known for his vocal music, both choral and solo. His style is essentially tonal and melodic. He has been commissioned by such notable organizations as the Minnesota Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Dale Warland Singers, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, whose then-conductor Robert Shaw championed his choral works widely. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim Foundation, and won the prestigious Kennedy Center Friedheim Prize.

Chicago Chorale, with the financial support of Chicago’s Harper Court Foundation, has commissioned And Give Us Peace in honor of the ensemble’s 10th anniversary year, 2010-2011.

I like this...

“In the end the only study of music is music. Program notes and pre-concert lectures can be helpful ways of showing you the door in the wall and of turning on some extra light, but the only thing that matters is what happens privately, between you and the music. As with any other form of falling in love, no one can do it for you. Listening to music is not like getting a haircut or a manicure, it is something for you to do. Music, like any worthwhile partner in love, is demanding, sometimes exasperatingly demanding. Its capacity to give is as near to infinite as anything in this world, and what it offers us is always and inescapably in exact proportion to what we ourselves give” Michael Steinberg

Auditions

Chorale is wrapping up its auditions. Our roster won’t be final until it is final, of course-- but we are close. What do I look for in singers? I start with ear—both for pitch, and for language. I play a series of intervals for each singer on the piano, which I ask them to repeat-- patterns featuring tritones, perfect fifths, major and minor thirds, unresolved dissonances. The patterns are not long and involved—one can “rate” even people who have little prior singing experience, through this exercise: this particular capacity seems innate, and I seldom hear a singer improve, over the years and with additional exposure. I accept singers within a certain range of ability—but place a very high priority on the best ears. Chorale’s complex and mostly unaccompanied repertoire requires this.

All auditionees sing a piece in German. Not because Chorale sings so much in German, but because, I figure, if they can work out the problems they confront in German, they probably can do a decent job with other languages, too. I am unable to be as strict with this requirement, as I am with pitch sensitivity: Americans are mostly not well-trained in languages, and their ears have largely closed to new sounds by the time they are old enough to sing with Chorale, whatever capacity they may have had earlier in life. I take language into account as much as I can in making my choices; and then we coach a good deal in rehearsals.

I ask to hear a second selection, because I want to make sure singers feel comfortable, if German is difficult for them. I want to be able to judge musicality, expressiveness, sense of style, sensitivity to the characteristics of the piece they have chosen. Are they “artists?” Will they responsive to the beauty, the drama, the depth, of the repertoire Chorale sings?

Chorale rehearses once a week, and presents difficult music; we need to get the “grid” (pitch and rhythm, vertical and horizontal values) under control as quickly as possible, and move on to other things. The sight-reading component of the audition is crucial. Even if singers struggle, I am interested in the degree to which they can self-correct. Relative to rhythm, I listen carefully for the “inner clock”—do they lock in to the tactus? Can they switch between duple and triple? Can they sing even triplets? I am more likely to accept someone who is a weaker reader, if I sense a high level of innate ability and trainability.

I also converse with auditionees—try to get a sense of their actual interest in Chorale’s repertoire, and their comfort and ease at dealing not only with me, but with other members of the ensemble. A choir is a community; I want Chorale’s singers to be good, supportive neighbors to one another.

Finally: I listen for vocal quality. I admire really beautiful voices; but I know that too many of them will defeat the choral sound. I value a variety of sounds, and listen for the way in which they will fit together; for every larger, more complex voice, I want a certain number of smaller, clearer voices who will balance and buffer the big ones, allow them to sing comfortably without “competing” with other complex sounds. Of course, I listen for well-produced, healthy vocalism; I don’t want Chorale to sound pushed or strained, and I know that faulty intonation reflects bad singing, as much as it does weak ears. I require that each section, not just the sopranos, sing with clear, even pitch—our repertoire won’t allow anything less than this; and I am very sensitive to any inflexibility in this regard, that I hear in a singer. A clear, accurate choral instrument is our goal, rather than a collection of warm sounds which bump up against one another, and overwhelm the music.

One hopes to hear a large number of auditions, and to make the best, most informed choices possible: once the roster is announced, I commit myself completely to the singers I have chosen, and make the best choir out of them, that I can. I, and Chorale, have to live with any mistakes I make—I cannot blame a singer, once I have chosen him/her.

Enhancing audience experience of live classical music performance

Interesting exerpt from a recent (June 25, 2010) preview article by Wynne Delacoma in Chicago Classical Review.  She discusses James Conlon's ideas regarding strategies for enhancing audience experience of live classical music performances., and the implementation of these ideas at Ravinia: Ravinia is celebrating Conlon’s 60th birthday this season, and he has seen massive changes on the music scene. Classical music has become a niche art, but Conlon actively fights the notion that it is only for a select few. Early in his career he hated the notion of conductors speaking to audiences. But now he gives a pre-opera talk every time he conducts in Los Angeles. Whenever he speaks from Ravinia’s podium, his comments are typically witty and graceful.

Conlon sees value in the video screens that Ravinia is using at every CSO concert. The idea is to give pavilion audiences a closer look at the performers and forge a closer connection between audience and orchestra. Some concertgoers loathe them, but Kauffman said the overall response has been positive.

“It was a big mistake,” said Conlon, “to have allowed classical music to fall out of public education, and we’re paying the price for it now. Anything that reverses this trend is a necessity.

“I can certainly understand the viewpoint of people who may not like those screens. But I think at this point in history, it’s outweighed by the necessity of winning people and keeping them, young people especially. People very much like seeing the orchestra.”

Back in the saddle

A lot of water has washed over the dam, since last I posted anything here. Much of it good, cleansing, purifying water. Chorale is excited about it's tenth anniversary season, has quite a number of wonderful announcements to make, and is bubbling in anticipation of all the things this new season will hold for us. We have a new Managing Director! Megan Balderston will join our team as of July 1, and I personally could not be more thrilled. She has several years of professional, practical, hands-on experience in running performance organizations such as ours, combined with a healthy knowledge of performing, personally, from the other side of the podium. We expect some very positive changes in the way we present ourselves to our public, and in the way things run in-house.

Chorale's programming, through December, will focus on works unfamiliar to many of our listeners and singers-- works acknowledged to be amongst the very best being composed during our time, but time-consuming and difficult to produce. Most notable amongst these will be the Vespers portion of the Vigilia, by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (1971). First performed in Chicago by Bella Voce, back in 2003 or so, it is a work of surpassing depth and beauty, couched in a harmonic vocabulary reminiscent of such contemporaries as Pärt, Tavener, and Hovhaness. Chorale will be joined in this major presentation by bass soloist Wilbur Pauly, well-known to Chicago audiences through his work with Lyric Opera and the Newbury Consort.

In addition, Chorale will present the final movement of The Sealed Angel, composed in 1988 by Rodion Shchedrin, for the occasion of the millenium of the Christianisation of Russia. Our Russian section will conclude with a setting of the Our Father by Nikolai Golovanov (1891-1953).

A major aspect of Chorale's Tenth Anniversary Celebration has been the planning and commissioning of a new, a cappella work, And Give Us Piece, in conjunction with celebrated American composer Stephen Paulus. We now have this work in hand, and will begin rehearsing it in September, in time for it's world premier performances here in Chicago, December 11 and 12. No composer currently working in the field of choral music is more universally recognized and celebrated than Stephen Paulus; we are indeed honored that he has so graciously agreed to contribute to our anniversary celebrations in this way, and we are very excited to get to work on his piece.

Chorale will present its annual Advent Vespers, in conjunction with the monks of the Monastery of the Holy Cross, Sunday afternoon, December 5, at 5 p.m. Unlike many of the high-octane, celebratory Advent events which occur throughout the Chicago area during the pre-Christmas season (often in conjunction with an afternoon of shopping on Michigan Avenue), the liturgy celebrated by Chorale and the monks is quiet, contemplative, unrushed-- a series of readings interspersed with Gregorian chant sung by the monks, and choral polyphony appropriate to the readings, presented by the choir. For me, in my personal acknowledgment of the season-- this is Advent; I love this evening, and I wish it could go on and on. I am always sad when people finally stand up and start moving toward the doors.

In January, Chorale begins rehearsing J. S. Bach's Mass in B Minor. Yes, we have done this work before-- but one cannot do it too many times-- it insults the work, in fact, even to think we could ever "do" it. Our concert will occur on Sunday, April 3, 3 p.m., at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. This year's presentation will utilize historically appropriate instruments, contracted for Chorale by local cellist and contractor Craig Trompeter. Rachel Barton Pine will serve as concertmaster. We plan to perform from the rear gallery (I have participated in numerous performances of the work from back there, over the years, and assure you, it is not only possible, but highly desirable, from an acoustic point of view), and are currently investigating the possibility of video taping the performance, and showing portions of it simultaneously. More on that later...

Sound like a full year? We are taking a trip to Spain and France in June! Not everyone, but quite a sizable percentage of the members, will fly to Barcelona on June 17, sing a number of concerts during the next two weeks, and return from Paris June 27.

A couple of years ago, we had a motto:

If not us, who? If not now, when?

And we didn't ignore it.

Duruflé Concert and Family

Written to Chorale before our concert last night; says what I have to say at this time: I am back from Evansville, and ready to conduct our concert. Just now I actually spoke with Kaia on the phone—they are letting her come up out of the sedation now, removing some tubes, having her breathe on her own. Her physical health and strength are a remarkable gift-- this morning I saw her at 5 a.m., just before I went to the airport, and would not have believed I would hear actual words cone out of her. She is so vital, so resilient.

Every parent fears and dreads the phone call I answered Wednesday afternoon. When I heard that voice from the hospital in southern Illinois, I thought the world stood still. “Are you the parent of Kaia Tammen?” And when I finally saw her, late Thursday afternoon, after a total of eleven grueling hours of surgery, involving five different doctors as well as an army of support staff, I thought I would not be able to bear what I saw. I am so grateful to everyone—to the man who discovered their bodies by the side of the road and turned them over, cleared their air passages so they would not drown or suffocate; to the rescue teams who brought them safely to the trauma center in Evansville; to the wonderful surgeons and nursing staff; to Tambra Black, who drive Esther the six hours down to Evansville and stayed with her, fed her, drove her around, for three days; to Sharon for taking over conducting duties Thursday night; to all of you, as well as our other friends and family, who have offered your support and prayers and time and energy, taking care of our boys, our dogs, the arrangements for the coming concert. Never once have we felt alone, during this terrifying time.

James Baird, the father of Julia Baird, the other surviving girl, said a wonderful thing to us yesterday afternoon. He had been in frequent contact with his family’s rabbi, who had said to him, “Remember, James, there is no house fire prayer in Judaism.” When one sees and smells the smoke, one is not allowed to pray, dear lord, let that be someone else’s house, not mine. We really are all in this together—none of us is an island. Faith’s death diminishes not only her mother, and her friends, but all of us. And so does any death—in Gaza, in Bagdad, in Peshawar, in Uganda, anywhere.

As choral musicians, we are uniquely situated and gifted to understand the power of community—what we do is intensely, necessarily communal; we are utterly dependent upon one another for the true and honest expression of our music, and we are enhanced immeasurably by the presence and participation of one another. We don’t in fact even exist, as a choir, without one another; and our music would not even happen—Palestrina and Tavener and Duruflé would be mute without our communal efforts. My daughter would have died without communal efforts—she was lifted and held by the efforts of a community of people working together toward a common, positive end, and accomplishing in the process a miracle which none of them could have done alone.

I want very much to conduct this concert tonight. Maybe, had we programmed the best of broadway or swing into spring, I would have begged off; but we programmed music which reflects the best of the human spirit in a difficult time—and the difficulty of this current time impels me to respond in the language I speak best, and with you, who speak this language for me. I am grateful to all of you for being here to help me with this. Let’s sing our hearts out.

Program Notes for Chorale's March 27 Concert

Chorale’s March 27 concert, performed on the eve of the Christian Holy Week, presents musical settings of texts that explore death from both sides, and pose two questions: what becomes of those who die, and what remains to those left behind? The work of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-94) epitomizes, perhaps more than any other composer’s, the musical aesthetic of the Counter-Reformation. Never a musical trailblazer, Palestrina expertly assimilated and refined the polyphonic techniques of his predecessors to produce a seamless musical texture. Universally recognized as models of clarity, balance, and textual intelligibility, his motets and masses were constantly referred to by theorists to illustrate their theses. In fact, so highly esteemed was Palestrina during his lifetime that in 1577 he was chosen to rewrite the Church’s main plainchant books, following the guidelines established by the Council of Trent.

Palestrina’s legendary mastery of counterpoint is matched only by his musical restraint; the beautiful melodies spun within his contrapuntal web are perfectly balanced, each word—each syllable—receives the proper stress and length, and the overall effect is at all times supremely pleasing and varied. It is no surprise that his contemporaries referred to him as “The Prince of Music.” The nobility and reverence of his music is heard in our program’s 2-part motet, Sicut cervus, considered by many accounts to be the most outstanding example of religious choral art from the Renaissance. A setting of the Tract for the Blessing of the Font, taken from Psalm 42, and designated for Holy Saturday (a week from this evening), this motet exquisitely conveys the soul’s longing for union with God. We can hear this longing, yearning quality of the motet, captured in the extended notes at the beginning of its phrases and the constant reaching in the melodic line. It is this especially expressive and emotional quality which makes this particular motet more appropriate that other works by Palestrina for a larger choir such as Chorale.

British composer John Tavener (b. 1944) is best known for his religious, minimalist choral works, composed from within the context of the Russian Orthodox faith. He describes his compositions as “icons with notes rather than colours,” and seeks to minimize the signature of the artist-composer in his quest to illuminate text and meaning. Tavener composed Svyati (O Holy One) for choir and solo cello in 1995, and writes, “The text…is used at almost every Russian Orthodox service, perhaps most poignantly after the congregation [has] kissed the body in an open coffin at an Orthodox funeral. The choir sings ‘Svyati Bozhe’ (Holy God) as the coffin is closed and borne out of the church, followed by the mourners with lighted candles. The cello represents the Priest or Ikon of Christ…As in Greek drama, choir and priest are in dialogue with each other.” In Chorale's performance, the solo cello, played by Sophie Webber, sounds from an alcove hidden in the rear of the church, while the choir responds from the chancel.  The sound gently, yet insistently, carries the listener into an otherworldly realm.

At the age of ten, Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986) went with his father tosee the Cathedral at Rouen. The young boy thought it was just a visit. He had no idea until that evening that he would not be returning home to Louviers: his father had enrolled him in the boychoir school! Duruflé’s experiences singing in that great cathedral were to influence him throughout the rest of his life, as all of his music has its basis in Gregorian chant. His pieces are further characterized by clear forms coupled with traditional counterpoint, their beauty stemming from full, romantic harmonies.

Duruflé published a mere fourteen works total, but each is meticulously crafted. The most famous and influential is undoubtedly his first choral work, Requiem, Op. 9 (1947). It exists in three versions: one for large orchestra and organ, and another for organ only, both dating from 1947, and third version for smaller orchestra and organ from 1961. The Duruflé Requiem is entirely unique in its application of medieval melody and modern orchestration. Duruflé writes very few new tunes for this piece; rather, he resets Gregorian chant in a typically twentieth-century harmonic and orchestral milieu, weaving the chant melodies into the entire compositional framework. In the composer’s own words, “At times the text is paramount, and therefore the orchestra intervenes only to sustain or comment. At other times an original musical fabric inspired by the text takes over completely…. In general, I have attempted to penetrate to the essence of Gregorian style and have tried to reconcile, as far as possible, the very flexible Gregorian rhythms as established by the Benedictines of Solesmes with the exigencies of modern notation.”

The result is a triumph; however, there is still more at work in Duruflé’s chef d’oeuvre: not only is the composer brilliantly reworking Gregorian chant, he is also consciously referencing and responding to the entire Requiem tradition. The text of the Requiem Mass has inspired composers since the High Renaissance. Polyphonic settings of the “Mass for the Dead” became a standard part of composers’ repertories from the days of Ockeghem. This tradition continued for centuries, yielding the well-known settings by Mozart and Berlioz, who first made the Requiem a work of truly monstrous proportions. Verdi followed in this tradition, as did Dvorák, and many lesser-known composers like Charles Villiers Stanford. These compositions accentuate the darker, infernal side of death, as often illustrated by the intense drama of the “Dies irae” section, boldly proclaiming the approach of a terrible judgment day. At the height of the Requiem’s compositional popularity, Gabriel Fauré defied this tradition by emphasizing a tender, even comforting aspect of death, interpreting it as a departure from this troubled world and a hopeful arrival in a place of peace and eternal rest. Fauré went so far as to completely eliminate the “Dies irae” text from his musical setting.

While Duruflé’s Requiem consciously evokes the letter of Fauré’s setting in many ways, it creates a much more complex musical experience. The proximity of World War II still cast a long shadow in 1947, and the piece is not without its darker side. The orchestration often sounds uncomfortably against the plainchant-inspired melodic contours and sensuous harmonies, endowing the piece with extraordinary inner drama. Exquisite eloquence clashes with vehement cries as the tenderness of the “Pie Jesu” confronts the tension and intensity of the “Libera me”—and the now-reinstated “Dies irae” section.

Duruflé’s Requiem does deliver on the promise of eventual rest its title implies: the bliss of celestial peace does indeed glisten gloriously in the fading fermata of the final “In Paradisum” (marked to be held “très long”). But it is won only after fierce spiritual struggle.

notes (mostly) by Justin Flosi

Composer of the Month

WFMT’s current emphasis on Rachmaninoff has been wonderful for Chorale. We have been “New Release of the Week” since last Sunday, and movements from our Vespers recording have aired each of the past five mornings—always about the time I am returning from my dog walk, in my truck, which means I hear the broadcasts. Other, wonderful recordings by professional ensembles have aired, as well, and it has been interesting, sometimes excruciating, to compare vocal sound, interpretation, idiomatic quality of approach. I have been proud of Chorale; and radio listeners seem to have liked them, as well: we have seen a dramatic spike in on-line sales of the CD. I have made three trips to the post office just this week! The station is playing far more than Vespers recordings; I suspect in fact that they are trying to cover Rachmaninoff’s entire output. Some favorites, like the piano concertos, the Etudes-tableaux, the Vocalise and other songs, Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, are played repeatedly, in performances by a wide variety of musicians. I have loved this music, been moved and thrilled and stirred by it, ever since a high school English teacher played a recording of the Paganini variations during an exam—I was so taken with the music, I couldn’t focus on my test, and had to retake it, later (the teacher was sympathetic). The other day, inspired by WFMT, I sat at this computer for an hour, playing various versions of the Vocalise that came up on Utube—with unabashed subjectivity, I recommend Anna Moffo’s and Kiri Te Kanawa’s renditions. The stirring, emotional beauty of this music, presented in good performances, really bowls me over.

But last spring, in the process of working on the Vespers, I discovered something I had not known previously-- Rachmaninoff is a good, solid composer, not just an emotionally stirring one. Those fifteen movements are wonderfully planned and thought-out; the combination of the straitjacket of the historic Orthodox chant materials, with his imaginative manipulation of them, produces wonderful, complex, surprising music. I expect he is sometimes facile and self-indulgent in his piano compositions; but in the Vespers, craft and hard work are always evident, along with the melodic and harmonic inspiration for which he is celebrated.

Strangely—but typically, for me-- J.S. Bach popped into my head during my Vocalise orgy (isn’t everyone haunted regularly by Bach?) I thought—Bach composes music just as appealing and emotionally satisfying as this, and so much more, besides. This does not diminish Rachmaninoff; his gift is real, honest, profound, and I am grateful to know him. What hit me, though, was-- how could one be Bach, have this particular gift, and every other gift, as well? Put Stravinsky, Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Verdi, Palestrina, in a pot together, and you still haven’t quite got Bach—he had it all.

By the way—Chorale will present Bach’s B Minor Mass next April, little more than a year from now. My fifth preparation as a conductor; perhaps my twentieth altogether, if one includes performances I have sung. I was so thrilled, the day the decision was made, I could barely contain myself. Chorale will celebrate it’s 10th anniversary during 2010-2011; what could be more fitting, than to commemorate this anniversary by preparing and performing the greatest choral/orchestral work out there. Just announcing this, tells people who we want to be.

Singing, teaching, conducting

In the broadest possible terms: I sing first, then teach others to sing. This seems to me an unassailable progression; many choral conductors would lay claim to some version of the same thing. I think our training and experience in the first two, greatly impacts the success of the third.

By the time I reached college, I wanted badly to sing well; then, and later, I sought out the best teachers, coaches, and accompanists I could find. They worked mightily to help me make the most of my instrument; they taught me about the expressive possibilities inherent in the human voice; they greatly broadened and deepened my instinctive range. They introduced me to great composers and vocal repertoire; they helped me with languages; they guided me through questions of national and historical style; and they taught me to perform effectively in public. I studied voice, participated in summer programs and master classes, and performed a broad range of solo repertoire regularly, for more than twenty-five years; it’s amazing how much one learns, and absorbs, through such an apprenticeship. No one ever told me I had a great voice, or a career right over the horizon; but my desire to learn what I could about the craft, was always respected.

My teachers taught me, through example, how to teach. I admired them, and emulated them. Of course, one learns through doing. I suspect no one teaches voice effectively, until they have been trying to do so for several years; but along the way, if one has interest and aptitude, one learns to deal with voices, to care about them, to help them. After three years of college teaching, I chose to do graduate work in vocal performance and pedagogy, rather than in conducting-- and I felt, still feel, that this was the right choice for me: I knew I would always be teaching people to sing, for one reason or another, and that this would be the root, the basis, of anything else I did.

Singing also led me to choirs. As a child, I sang in choirs—through community, church, and school-- because that was where one sang; where else? Solo singing did not present itself as an option; singing was all about working with other people. I loved choirs, and choral repertoire; I attended a college which specialized in choral performance; and I sought choral opportunities wherever I happened to live or work. This early training and experience was important for me; it prepared me sing later on in wonderful choirs, under extraordinary conductors and preparators. One way or another, I have sung most of the major works in the standard choral/orchestral repertoire, in good performances; and I have sung literally thousands of smaller works, under perhaps hundreds of conductors, some of those pieces many times, under many circumstances. I have known many of those conductors personally; have observed and experienced their methods; have been able to evaluate them (and their effect on me and my fellow singers), learn from them, pick and choose amongst their habits and techniques. Again, for me—this was the way to learn to conduct choirs: an old-style apprenticeship/journeyman situation.

As I have grown older, I do less singing, and more conducting. For a certain period, I was very conflicted about this; finally I just let it happen, and that has been for the best. Like a sponge which has absorbed so much, for so long—that which has been absorbed starts leaking out, and it is best to take advantage of that. I completely agree with something Robert Shaw used to say-- that the very heart of choral singing is this miracle: that people singing together in a choir, are so much more, so much better, that the sum of all their talents and energy. Choral singing, for me, is a model for the way we should live, the way we should conduct ourselves in all aspects of our communal lives-- commit ourselves to worthy projects, respect one another and reconcile our differences, work together to be so much more than we could ever be, otherwise. Strangely, people don’t see this and do it on their own; someone has to point the way, someone has to put up a sign that says, Be here Wednesday night at 7. And let’s try to sing better.

Choral Singers and Choirs

A friend commented once, “Instrumentalists work hard to get into the orchestra; singers work hard to get out of the chorus.” There are notable exceptions, of course—when did Joshua Bell last serve as concertmaster?—but mostly this generalization works. Music schools of greater and lesser renown turn out singers who want solo careers, and players who want orchestra contracts. A pitifully small percentage of those singers will ever achieve their goals; most of those who continue singing, will do so in choirs, large and small. Some of these gifted, trained singers will never completely recover from their disappointment, and will approach choral singing with resentment -- they will dislike and undermine their conductors, compete with their fellow choristers for any special recognition that happens to be lying around, and generally spin their musical tires in the slough of despond. Most will ultimately cultivate specific niches—early music, church music, chamber choir, opera chorus, symphonic chorus, and every conceivable variety of overlap between these various genres—in which they feel best satisfied, and in which they receive the most recognition. And many of them will learn to be happy with this. The common denominator is, they are all choral singers.

And these are only the very peak of the choral pyramid. Millions of people sing in choirs-- some professionally, some vocationally, some informally. A Google search focused on the Chicago area alone yields an astonishing number of choral opportunities, from Lyric Opera Chorus, Music of the Baroque, and Symphony Chorus at one end of the spectrum, to local church choirs at the other. Thousands of Chicago singers take private lessons, purchase expensive performance attire, learn repertoire on their own time, hire baby sitters, drive long distances through bad weather—basically, organize a good deal of their lives around choral singing.

Good choral singers, across the spectrum, have certain talents, skills, and attitudes in common. A good amateur choir can be as satisfying for its members, and its audiences, as a choir that pays top money for its singers, so long as the singers themselves accept the disciplines of their craft, believe in their repertoire and their leadership, promote their organization enthusiastically, and put in the time and work demanded by their envisioned final product. Such a group can even exceed its professional counterpart, if the singers in the professional organization do not accept the disciplines, and exemplify the commitment and enthusiasm, which motivate the amateurs.

Choral singers must work together, for the common good. In the very best groups, at any level, they must nominate themselves neither leaders nor followers, but somehow all pull together, at the same time and in the same direction, the stronger with the weaker. They must fit their voices into the ensemble sound articulated by the conductor and required by the repertoire; they must accept the musical ideas of the conductor, and place their own musical sensitivity, instincts, and ideas, at the service of the ensemble. They must take responsibility to learn their music at a rate appropriate to the ensemble’s level and goals; they must embrace the necessity of good attendance; they must understand that doing their best usually does not mean singing their loudest, and their most distinctively.

The humility, the discipline, the communal commitment to honest and excellent performance of great music, which one finds in a good choir, results in something so much larger, so much better, than the sum of the individual possibilities represented by its members. I can’t help but feel that choral singing is a window, for its participants, on a better world, and represents the kind of work we all should be doing, all the time. Always, I have come out of choir rehearsals feeling that I have just been my best, most contributing, self; and wishing that the high I feel would more successfully carry through my non-choral life.

I sang my first B Minor Mass thirty-five years ago, with a good choir and orchestra. By the time we reached Dona nobis pacem, I felt as though the roof had lifted off the building, and that I, my fellow performers, the audience, and the music, were all one with the stars filling the sky. It is the closest to transformed, and better, that I have ever felt. I have known ever since—this is what choral singing can do for you.

Piano in choral rehearsals

When I conducted college choirs, money was provided for rehearsal accompanists, so I always had one. Most were not thrilled to work with me---I did not let them play very much. Pianists want to play; the better they read and play, the more they wish to be constantly active.

My principle college conductor, Weston Noble, used a pianist very sparingly. Our choir was large, 70-75 singers; we sang primarily a cappella music, we rehearsed five times a week, and we had ridiculously high standards. Mr. Noble felt that piano accompaniment, past warm-ups, initial pitches, and help in learning difficult passages, would actually weaken our learning, and our final product. Never, ever, did the pianist "just play along," supporting the group's singing. Even when we worked on music which would be accompanied in performance, we would learn it without keyboard help. This enabled the conductor to hear what was happening; it also forced singers to be responsible for their own pitches and rhythms. Singers are great followers---they love to hear the note first, then chime in; this doesn't promote good musical training, and contributes to epidemic fuzziness of attack, of rhythmic precision, of pitch accuracy---the very aspects of our craft which instrumentalists, in particular, ridicule and complain about.

I have never, since that college experience, worked with a choir which had such leisure to learn its music, or its craft. The larger, more professional choirs with which I have sung---Chicago Symphony Chorus, Grant Park Chorus, Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Oregon Bach Festival Chorus---employ expensive, skilled accompanists, who are not only good pianists, but who are expected to read the conductor's mind: they know exactly where he/she is in the score, understand immediately his/her priorities, anticipate problems, know when to play accompaniment, parts, or just sit out. The best seem to be adjunct to the conductor's persona, sharing even his/her musicality and sense of phrase. Robert Shaw would on occasion turn to his accompanist and tell him to model a phrase, and the pianist would do it flawlessly, providing with incredible efficiency exactly what was needed at the moment. And professional choristers, for the most part, are confident, skilled, and aggressive enough to know they must neither follow nor lead, but be in the right place at exactly the right time.

Under less than perfect circumstances, though---when rehearsal time is very limited, the score is particularly knotty, the transitions difficult, the singers tentative---even these professional accompanists will lead aggressively, just to get the job done and keep both the conductor and the singers feeling confident and reassured. This can lead to sloppy performance; at its worst---if the work being prepared is a cappella, for instance---it can lead to disaster, when the singers are deprived of keyboard support in performance. When singers become rattled and insecure, the disciplines which make up good singing---beauty of tone, solid pitch and rhythm, careful diction, ensemble listening, and communicativeness---go right out the window; they have nothing concrete, no fixed instrument, to hold on to, and they flounder. Again an example from my years with Mr. Shaw: one summer late in his life, we prepared a concert which included both the Vaughan Williams Mass in G and the Howells Requiem, very quickly. Embarrassingly, we fell apart during our first performance; and I had no doubt that the ubiquitous use of piano during rehearsals contributed greatly to this.

This latter scenario is particularly true of amateur choruses. I share Mr. Shaw’s conviction that such groups can sound as good as, and even better, on occasion, than, professional groups; but the individual singers lack the quickness, the confidence, the skills, of professional singers, and need far more rehearsal, repetition, drilling, than professional choristers. In many instances they function by hearing first, then following a split second later, and tend to sing that way habitually---which brings us back to the accompanist issue.

Perhaps because my experience under Weston Noble was so lasting and significant (he was a great teacher), I follow his model in utilizing an accompanist. If Chorale, or CMAC, had sufficient money to hire a regular, professional accompanist, I would use one, and I would expect that pianist to be in lock-step with my procedures and goals. I really require that my singers, like professionals, neither lead nor follow, but head all in the same direction, at the same time; and they can't learn to do this, if they are being helped and lead indiscriminately, the ensemble loses, rather than gains. Chorale accomplishes what it undertakes through being challenged rather than through being accommodated.

Which Latin?

The "which Latin?" issue rears its head, relative to the Mahler 8 first movement (Veni, Creator Spiritus). When I was in college, this issue did not exist, at least in Iowa: we pronounced the language one way in Latin class (weni, widi, wiki), and another in choir (veni, vidi, vichi). The choral pronunciation we termed "ecclesiastical Latin;" only later did I learn that we were using an Italiante pronunciation, greatly influenced by our upper Midwestern vowels. I first encountered German Latin several years later, under Margaret Hillis, and became accustomed to singing the Latin settings by German composers with this pronunciation. Through a rather intense immersion in early music, especially under the influence of Belle Bouche, Bel Parleur ( I have lost track of this book, even of the proper spelling of its title), I learned about German, French, English, even Swedish Latin, as well as appropriate pronunciation shifts related to dates and religious influences. The options, as well as the consequences of making a wrong choice, mounted alarmingly. I found myself wallowing in a morass of strongly held opinions, lacking the background to do anything with confidence. About this time I landed a teaching job back in Iowa---and happily returned to the "ecclesiatic" pronunciation people out there were using. I didn't stay in Iowa for long; but, because I did not return to a specifically early music-oriented milieu, I continued with my Iowa Latin: I had enough trouble teaching my college-age choirs the proper notes, and had little energy left to hound them about their Latin. Before long, I began singing with Robert Shaw, who used the Iowa Latin for everything. Mr. Shaw was anything but passive about pronunciation, however: his concern was always for the sounds of language, and their utility in producing the same level of rhythmic precision and articulation in the chorus, that he got from the orchestra. He demanded an extraordinary amount of precision from us, and would experiment with various emphases and substitutions to get our sound over the orchestra and out to the listeners. Within the parameters of his chosen Latin pronunciation, he experimented with substituting unvoiced for voiced consonants, depending on pitch and volume level (Klawdia in place of Gloria, for instance), to clarify our attacks and rhythmic precision. He would mix the two sounds, G and K, in an attempt to find just the right balance between attack and correct listener perception of the sound; he also combined S and Z in our attack on the word Sanctus, for the same reason. He was a very verbal and expressive person; but his use of language as the vehicle for voices was remarkably objective and utilitarian.

My years with Helmuth Rilling present an entirely different situation. One has only to listen to the Oregon Bach Festival recording of Messiah, to understand how completely German Rilling is---his innate requirements, deeply based in his native language, are so specific, that he manages to get an all-American choir, singing in English, to sound like a German ensemble singing in a second language. Like Shaw, he is deeply committed to rhythmic precision and articulation; but his model and motivation seem to lie in the language itself, rather than in the more abstract realm of orchestral playing. His Bach Passions, in German, are absolutely riveting---he is completely committed to telling the story, and bends every element of the performance toward expression of the narrative. And his B Minor Mass profits from an idiomatically German pronunciation of the Latin; one has no problem imagining that this is precisely the pronunciation Bach had in mind.

Rilling's Mozart performances present a different situation, however. I have sung Robert Levin's reconstructions of both the Requiem and the Mass in C Minor several times with Mr. Rilling, often with Mr. Levin present during rehearsals; twice I have heard Levin state that, in his judgment, Mozart---Austrian, Roman Catholic, influenced by Italian singing---would have assumed an Italianate pronunciation of the Latin, rather than a German one. By extension, this pronunciation, through utilizing more open vowels and softer, more insinuating, less precise consonants-- magnificat pronounced man-yificat, rather than mak-nificat, for instance---would encourage a fuller, richer, more legato approach than that produced by the German pronunciation. Mr. Rilling's Mozart is very satisfying; but I often think of Mozart's own words, in a letter to his father (written in Italian): Prima la musica, poi le parole. First the music, then the words. I can imagine him preferring the Italian sound.

I have heard arguments about the sung pronunciation of Latin from several points of view. What does the composer assume? and by extension, what does his contemporary audience assume? What does a modern audience assume, and prefer? I remember hearing, when singing under Margaret Hillis: CSO recordings were marketed internationally, not just to Chicago audiences, and nationally appropriate pronunciation would be appropriate to a world-class group. American choral educator Don Moses has written that we should base our pronunciation upon the preference and comfort of our target audience---American (i.e., "ecclesiastical") for American audiences. Helmuth Rilling takes yet another position: German pronunciation just works better for him, and accomplishes his musical goals more efficiently.

On to Mahler and his 8th symphony later.

Rehearsing Mahler 8

I began rehearsing the Mahler 8th Symphony this past week, with both groups, Chorale and CMAC. Beastly big! Our performance isn’t until April 19th---and I’m glad; we need time to digest and understand it.

Physically/vocally it is very challenging: Mahler composed for two equal choirs, each choir often divided into eight or ten parts; the tessitura in each voice is quite challenging; and the dynamic requirements are enormous---the orchestra is very large, with lots of winds, especially brass, competing with the singers, necessitating a very full sound from the chorus, top to bottom. But, as well, there are many lyrical, pianissimo sections, often in the difficult upper range---and these sections occur as often as not after a forceful, fortissimo passage, leaving the singers no good chance to return to piano mode. Music in this Germanic, dense, post-Romantic idiom requires very clean pitch in all voices if Mahler’s exquisite, expressive harmonic movement is to come across with any clarity---but that clarity is exactly the thing singers lose, when they are operating at top volume: less fortunate singers tend to push, distort, and lose pitch identity, even if they hear things accurately; and even the healthiest, best-trained singers, under this sort of pressure, can lose control of good choral technique, allowing their individual, idiosyncratic sounds to over-express themselves, thereby losing the pitch and rhythmic accuracy so integral to good choral singing. A work of this magnitude is a draining, constantly challenging physical workout, requiring healthy vocalism, lots of preparation, and an iron will to accomplish the composer’s intentions.

But good instruments, well-used, are just the beginning. The work is aurally quite challenging, as well. Mahler composes in a basically tonal idiom, but he is often four or five removes from a tonal center, and modulates constantly. Singers, to follow him, must have very good ears, as well as analytical, pattern-perceiving minds, and a great deal of courage. We are fortunate that good recordings are easily available---repeated listening invites these patterns, and the overall structure, to express themselves and settle in. And we need enough rehearsal time to allow lots and lots of repetition, so that the singers can become vocally and aurally comfortable with the work.

Mahler presents just the sort of challenges that Chorale and CMAC singers enjoy. They tend to be highly intelligent and analytical, with excellent ears and pattern-perception. Most are gifted linguistically and mathematically, and are highly educated; they are confident in their own abilities, and they tend not to be intimidated by big challenges. They expect to work hard, and they have the imagination, as well as the ears, to see and hear past early, difficult rehearsals. Last week was really exciting. I know that many are working hard on their own, and I am excited to hear where we are this next week.

Conducting while seated

I have been fending this off for nearly twenty years; but last Saturday and Sunday I finally had to sit while conducting concerts. I am likely to recover from this particular acute back event, and conduct on my feet again-- but this is definitely a harbinger of things to come. So how did it go? Far better than I expected. I have fallen, twice, while conducting during the past two seasons, so my singers are always somewhat on edge, warning me with their eyes when I approach the edge of the stage, gasping a little if I momentarily lose my footing. And I rehearse more and more while seated-- so they are both comfortable and relieved when I am not on my feet. But I have always felt that the group could happily lose itself in comfort and relief, and consequently needed all of my physical energy and involvement-- like a blood transfusion; pull out the tube, and they would wilt before me. I conflated that tube, with being on my feet-- as though the strength came up out of the ground, through my arms and hands, and just bodily picked them up. Facing the future, as well as acknowledging weaknesses in my conducting, I have known that I had to find a new and better way to get the results I was after-- but then, as soon as I sensed low energy or attentiveness from the group, I'd be back on my feet again, fanning their feeble flames.

My lesson this past weekend: the choir CAN respond on a higher level if they MUST do so-- I have to trust that, and be willing to force them to do so. I, in turn, freed from so much cheer leading, can do a better, more precise job of delineating line, and of creating a complex atmosphere.

Chorale is not out of the woods, on this one-- I will soon enough remember why it is, that I enter rehearsals as though they were boxing matches; and I will feel helpless to shake them up and galvanize them, short of attaching each singer to a pair of electrodes. But I think I learned, this past weekend, that this is the very site of our growth point,the sine qua non of our continued upward trajectory.