My recent blog entries have focused on Chicago Chorale’s genealogy. Traditions and styles don’t just appear and assert themselves; whether we acknowledge our predecessors or not, they influence us and shape our work, as we in turn shape those who follow us. I have reflected upon the conductors and teachers with whom I have worked, and whose influence is reflected in Chicago Chorale’s approach to choral performance.
This week, I write about an influence larger than any single person: the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin Conservatory. Rather like a colony of honeybees, this 47-year old institution, comprising so many individual musicians, teachers, and students, is more important than any individuals I might feature. Unity of focus, and the combination of talent and insight, gathered under one umbrella, have made this organization an all-important generator of ideas, knowledge, and performance practice, influencing and disseminating lasting interest in the music of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Andre Bouys, 1710. National Gallery, London. Served as the visual logo for the Institute for 25 years.
As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I sang with a small group of early music enthusiasts, under the leadership of Howard Mayer Brown, an important Renaissance scholar on the university’s faculty. Another participant in this group was Ken Slowick, a Chicago musician who specialized in baroque cello and viols (Ken is now the director of BPI). In 1978, Ken and Howard urged me to attend a summer session at BPI, where Ken was on the faculty, to learn more about performance practice of the Baroque period, and to work with Dutch baritone Max van Egmond, who was about to commence his long-time association with the Institute. I listened to a recording of Max’s rendition of the bass solos in the Bach B Minor Mass, realized this would be a wonderful opportunity for me to learn from a master, and signed up, though not without some trepidation—I was fairly provincial in my experiences and tastes, and embarrassed about that. But I had by that time spent several summers in the choruses at Ravinia and Grant Park, and noticed that singers around me who did not grow and move on, became stale and dissatisfied-- and I feared that might happen to me. So I drove to Ohio, and embarked on the first of eight summer sessions of challenging, fruitful study at Oberlin Conservatory.
Max van Egmond, baritone.
Most of what I encountered was completely new to me: historic tunings, especially the accepted baroque pitch of A=415; national styles; ornamentation and improvisation; vocal production that would allow singers to perform the fiendishly difficult music of the period; conductorless ensemble work—especially the close relationship between singers and continuo players (I had never before encountered the idea of continuo!); and a whole world of repertoire, the existence of which had previously been only hinted at in the pages of my college textbooks. I had several private voice lessons per week with Max, whose personal interest and example were invaluable; participated in daily master classes; rehearsed and performed with student ensembles; and sang small roles in “main stage” faculty concerts, under the direction of August Wenzinger, director of the Institute. I observed coaching sessions and rehearsals with other performers, and became acquainted for the first time with issues confronting players of period instruments. I particularly remember the energetic, insightful coaching I received from such teachers as organist Harald Vogel and violinist Marilyn McDonald, who changed forever the way I experienced music.
August Wenzinger, Director of The Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin Conservatory
Just as important—I spent social, as well as professional, time with a community of deeply-committed musicians who cared for one another, treated me as a colleague, and who have continued to influence me in succeeding years. At one point, Mr. Wenzinger spent an afternoon with me, coaching me in songs of Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)-- hardly a baroque composer, but someone about whom Mr. Wenzinger had strong opinions and important insight. As he said at that time—music is music. And although I did not remain in the early music “fold,” I was deeply influenced by my BPI experiences in my succeeding choices of repertoire, in my preparation of choirs for the concerts of baroque and classical music Chorale does present, and in my hiring of contractors, concert masters, and players for those concerts, many of whom have participated in BPI, themselves.
Dalton Baldwin and Gérard Souzay; Robert Shaw; Helmuth Rilling; Margaret Hillis; Weston Noble; Max van Egmond; August Wenzinger—what a collection of foreparents stands behind Chicago Chorale! I often imagine what they might say in certain circumstances, wonder if they would approve of what I do, what criticisms they might have, what they might do or have done in my place. I have been blessed personally, through the role they have played in my life; more, though, I see myself as a conduit through which they influence those who sing under my guidance.