Abbatiale St. Pièrre, where we sang an annual concert in our "home town" of Souillac, against the background of the hills on the other side of the Dordogne River.
Robert Shaw’s name was familiar to me from early in my life. Professional choirs conducted by him, Roger Wagner, Norman Luboff, and others, regularly stopped in the Twin Cities on their tours, and I was aware of them, though I never heard them-- like most middle and high school kids, I cared only about what happened in my local world, and my parents were content with that. Each of these conductors published numerous choral octavos under their own names; my church and high school choir conductors used a lot of these publications, especially those edited by Robert Shaw and Alice Parker. So his name hung in the air, if passively.
My college choral conductor, Weston Noble, attended summer sessions under Mr. Shaw at the Meadow Brook Music Festival, and was profoundly influenced by him. Barely a week went by that we did not hear “As Robert Shaw says” or “How does Robert Shaw feel about rhythm?” or “What does Robert Shaw say is the most important aspect of music?” Weston was a believer, and adopted many of Shaw’s ideas and procedures, bending them to his own preferences and mode of expression.
Robert Shaw
During my sophomore year, the Luther choir participated in an International Collegiate Choral Festival at Lincoln Center, headlined by Mr. Shaw. In addition to presenting short concert performances of their own repertoire, the choirs joined together to sing (if I remember correctly) the StravinskySymphony of Psalms, the Haydn Lord Nelson Mass, and the Verdi Te Deum. Shaw was young, powerful, bombastic, sweating buckets and tripping over his own words. Somewhat frightening. We thought he was an unapproachable god.
Quite a few years later, when I was conducting at the University of Chicago, I read a notice in the Choral Journal, soliciting auditions from singers who were specifically music educators, to spend several weeks in France with Robert Shaw, rehearsing and performing. I submitted a tape (sounds antiquated, doesn’t it?) and received a telephone call just days later from Maurice Casey, director of the program, inviting me to participate. A few months later I flew to Paris, took a train to Souillac, a small town in the Dordogne region, and became a member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers.
Festival Singers Rocamadour 1993
I had not met a single one of the other singers previously, did not know any of their names. Turned out that most of them had attended grad schools together, had sung together, had worked with Mr. Shaw; a high percentage of them sang in the Atlanta Symphony Chorus, and were familiar with most of the repertoire we were singing. They knew his techniques, his rehearsal procedures, his temper, his expectations. I didn’t. I felt very much outside of things, on the spot to prove myself.
Turned out that was not such a good idea. One did not want to come to Mr. Shaw’s attention. We rehearsed in a circle, with the piano and Mr. Shaw’s chair and music stand in the middle. He could hear and see most of what was going on, and kept on his feet, moving, most of the time. If he heard something that stuck out of his preferred texture, he might suddenly turn on the offending singer, and roar “Leave that in the studio!” or “immodest voice!” or “Listen louder than you sing.” I heard a lot of this, directed at me, during my first week or so. His assistant, Ann Jones, took me aside one day during a break, and said something to the effect that I clearly had been doing a lot more conducting than choral singing, and that I had better be careful. During a rehearsal in a church at Rocamadour, before a concert, I had the misfortune to be seated in front of an acoustic sounding board, which amplified my voice. Mr Shaw raged and raged; I though I would be kicked out of the concert. This brought another warning from Ann Jones. Fortunately, we figured out the problem, adjusted, and I lived to sing another day.
Lunch breaks were mercifully long. I could eat quickly and then walk down to the river and go swimming, or up in the hills, enjoying the incredible natural beauty of the countryside. One day I walked too far, and arrived a few minutes late for afternoon rehearsal. Not a head turned in my direction as I took my seat, in complete silence. During break, another Ann Jones warning: “The train leaves every day for Paris, and you could be on it.” I was never late again.
Images from Shaw’s home in Couzou (near to Souillac)
Six hours of choral rehearsal per day, six days per week. And then we began traveling to present concerts throughout the region. Even as we became a better choir, I was aware of widespread vocal fatigue and carelessness—I heard it all around me. Some of the better and more notable singers in the group—we had amongst our numbers such luminaries as Christine Goerke, Glenn Miller, Karl Dent, Martha Hart—vocalized regularly. There was no privacy-- if you sang, you would be heard. After initial embarrassment, I began vocalizing, too—I did not want to be pointed at in rehearsal and accused of singing flat. No more warnings from Ann Jones, please!
I was making friends, finally, and having a good time. It helped that I made it my job to buy cheap bottles of the local Cahors wine and bring them on the bus, to drink after concerts. After our final such bus trip, a group of us decided to rent a car and drive to Lascaux, to see the facsimile of the famous caves, on the rest day before recording sessions. Rather late the night before the trip, however, Maurice Casey knocked on my door, and told me Mr. Shaw wanted to hear me early the next morning, on a short solo in the Brahms Liebeslieder. I had never exchanged one word with Mr. Shaw, had never even auditioned for him—but it turned out someone had heard the vocalizing. I protested: wouldn’t the current owner of the solo be angry? And besides, I really wanted to see those caves. Maurice was not sympathetic: this is your opportunity; don’t screw it up. So I pulled out of the trip, and finally met Mr. Shaw formally the following morning.
It was nerve-wracking, but went well. When it was over, Mr. Shaw, in a good mood, asked me to sing the solo in one of the spirituals we were recording. I balked—I already had one baritone potentially hating me, I didn’t need two. And besides, I told him, I couldn’t sing the black dialect convincingly. To which he replied that he would teach me. I assured him that I would really mess this up and ruin our recording, and he backed off.
Me. Shaw gave me such courage. His temper, his impatience, his perfectionism, his self-doubt, his overwhelming energy, his embarrassment and mortification when he overstepped-- I saw so much of myself, and of who I wanted to be, in him. His recognition of my talent, which continued to manifest itself over the ensuing years, made me feel legitimate. I came home from that first summer forever changed, and returned for several more. I never developed any sort of personal relationship with him, and probably didn’t need to: one time, I saw an interchange between him and one of his long-time Atlanta friends, who walked up to him during a break and called him “Bob.” Mr. Shaw wheeled on him, pointed his finger, and said, “You call me Mr. Shaw.” And I always did.
Outside Shaw’s home in Couzou (near to Souillac)