Great music, done well-- by and for whom?

When Chicago Chorale first sang together, in October 2001, all of its members were University of Chicago students or alums. And I am fairly certain that the audiences who first heard us were composed entirely of Hyde Parkers, most with U of C connections. Though we continue to rehearse in Hyde Park, U of C’s home turf, the actual percentage of those with University affiliation has slipped since then; currently, about sixty percent have some formal connection with U of C. And we now present at least half of our concerts outside of Hyde Park, attracting a regional, rather than purely local, audience. But I think Chorale’s style, habits, expectations, continue to reflect its roots. From the beginning, our singers have tended to be highly intelligent and educated; they have experience with a broad range of musical styles, and prefer the rigorous, erudite programming which has become our trademark; they attend concerts, listen to recordings, read reviews and scholarship, and are generally very informed, about music and about arts culture in general.   They read extensively, write well, think critically, and question nearly everything. Not a week goes by, that I am not stopped after rehearsal, or do not receive at least one email, with a comment, suggestion, question, clarification, about something I have said or done during rehearsal. The singers pay close attention to my verbal communications, oral and written, and on occasion correct me, pick at my grammar, argue with me. I am continually reminded that they really listen to me, that I must be careful, be on top of things, mean what I say, have supporting information, avoid platitudes and generalities. And I often need a thicker skin to face their probing, informed questions and remarks, than l expect.

Chorale singers expect to perform on a high level. They are in general confident, disciplined, and determined to succeed. They demonstrate little fear or hesitation when tackling really challenging repertoire—rather, they revel in being challenged. Their general, incoming level of vocalism and music-making is respectable and competitive; what sets them, and Chorale, apart, thought, is the richness of understanding and experience with which they approach their craft, and the high level of appreciation they experience in practicing it. It is the general character of choral performance, that the sum is greater than the parts; with Chorale, this characteristic takes on new and urgent meaning. Altogether, Chorale is a very different group than I have ever sung with or conducted in other places, at other times. New singers are either drawn specifically to this character of the group, or they learn to appreciate and value it.

Many in our audience have had experiences and expectations matching those of the choir. Like the singers, the listeners started out as U of Chicago/Hyde Park types, and this local support and appreciation were organic in shaping our direction and mission; now, though, we draw music lovers from all over greater Chicago. Chance remarks and comments—“Oh, I so look forward to hearing your take on Rautavaara!” or “Your tempo on the Bach motet was somewhat faster than I expected” or “I thought your Nystedt had an appropriately northern flavor” always let me know that our listeners, like our singers, really pay attention, think, prepare, and understand what we are doing.

A growing segment of our audience, though, does not have specific musical background, and is drawn to our concerts by the “buzz,” or by their friends; and these listeners, hearing a kind of programming very new to them, seem inspired by it-- they find authenticity in what we do, and respond out of their best selves to the best that the composers, and the performers, can offer them. I deeply believe that great music, done well, reaches across cultural and socio-economic divides, and gets right to the middle of things. Mozart is not a cultural hero because our betters tell us he is, nor because a blockbuster movie was made about him; his position in our musical firmament reflects fundamental values that our singers, and our audience, sense and understand. Last night‘s  Mass in C minor rehearsal was absolutely thrilling for me-- Chorale’s singers get it, and I know our audience will get it, too, when they hear our November 24 concert.

Rehearsing this Mozart concert efficiently

Americans, at least, have a pervasive choral rehearsal model: one night a week, 2-3 hours, maybe an extra rehearsal or two before a concert. Perhaps this started with church choirs, which are responsible for weekly performances; but it is a pattern most choirs follow. When I first began singing in Chicago, I had one night for Symphony Chorus, one for temple/JCC, one for church, one for Collegium, one for Grant Park, one for Chicago Opera Theater Chorus (not all during the same time period!)—and so it went. It kept me sharp vocally, and taught me to learn quickly, reinforced my  flexibility. I was a professional, this was my job, and I had to make it work. Over the years, though, I began to question the wisdom of this model, especially for those singers who don’t aspire to be professionals, who sing in only one ensemble (and therefore one night a week). How efficient is it, to rehearse once a week? What percentage of what is taught and experienced on one Wednesday night, is lost during the ensuing week, and has to be relearned? Especially after I began singing in summer festival situations, with Robert Shaw and Helmuth Rilling, where singers are expected to sing six hours per day, six or seven days a week, over a short period of time, I began to question the effective use of rehearsal time. The latter, festival model, is incredibly efficient—singers and ensemble have no chance to forget anything from one rehearsal to the next, no chance to become complacent and stale, to let brains and voices become slack; they pick up right where they left off at the previous rehearsal, always moving toward the performance. Not only do they learn more quickly, I believe they enjoy it more, too: less repetition, less empty time listening to other sections drill, and, not surprisingly, more social interaction-- they see a lot of one another, both during breaks and after rehearsal, and constantly reinforce the “ensemble” aspect of what they are doing, feeding both interpersonal and musical needs.   I have noticed this model being adopted more and more during the “non-festival” time of year, as well-- young professional singers are hired for an intense two-week period, prepare a concert and/or recording, give their all, then go home when it is done. These performances and recordings tend to be very high quality, though expensive to manage;  and the singers appear to be the best of friends.

This latter model also resembles the pattern I experienced in college choir—five rehearsals a week of an hour and twenty minutes each, then a couple of weeks of intense, six-hour days before the choir left on tour. The more I thought about it, and realized that most college choral programs had nothing so intense as what I had undergone, the more clearly I understood that the excellence of my college choir was largely based upon the intensity of this rehearsal experience. Anything was a letdown after that—though it took me several years to understand why.

Chorale began, back in 2001, with the typical, one night a week pattern. Gradually, as our repertoire and season became more demanding, I added rehearsals—by adding weeks. Over time, I have come to feel this is not the best and most efficient way to do things, and have, in fact, shortened our actual rehearsal season, while keeping the same number of rehearsals—by adding Saturday rehearsals. I figure we will actually have better results, this way, than we would with the older, more traditional model. Usually we begin rehearsing the beginning of September; this year our first rehearsal was September 27. We will take six weeks off over Christmas, rather than three. The missing weeks are accounted for by Saturday rehearsals. Will I/we get away with this? Will the added time on weekends prove onerous to the singers? Really, I am attempting to move the definition of “amateur” closer and closer to “professional,” and it is new territory for us. Time will tell; the singers themselves will decide with their feet, whether this is to work or not.

In the meantime: we are in the midst of a “three rehearsals for the price of two” period, using it to crack open the larger, more complex movements of the Mozart Mass in C minor—Cum sancto spiritu, Credo, and Osanna—at the breakneck tempos Maestro Kraemer has requested of us. So much glorious music, coming at us so fast! The exhilaration of learning this stuff is mind-boggling. Great Music, Done Well.

Great music, done well

My shorthand version of Chorale’s mission statement is, “Great music, done well.” That’s why the group was founded: to give local singers who had a high level of expectation on both fronts, an opportunity to live out those expectations in real time. Such a mission can be a tough sell: good performances cost money; and why should anyone but our closest friends be interested in hearing us live out our expectations? Chorale struggles with this puzzle all the time. I constantly remind myself, and those with whom I work, to remember this mission, to believe in it, to keep it fresh, to forge ahead with it, to take great risks in keeping it alive. I personally would become bored and disheartened if Chorale ever lost this; I believe many of our members, and the core of our audience, would react similarly. Commerce is important; mission is why we exist at all. So I am thrilled with our current preparation, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, which we will perform with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, under the baton of Nicholas Kraemer, at Orchestra Hall, November 24. All demands of the mission are satisfied: great composer, great work, wonderful orchestra, noted conductor. Chorale’s happy task is to live up to the standard set by our partners-- what an inspiring challenge!

I have sung in numerous performances of this work in the past, in three different versions (Mozart left the work unfinished, and various scholars have either “completed,” or tidied up, what Mozart left, producing editions for public performance, all of them differing in details). I have been thrilled by the music, and have wanted to perform it with Chorale—but the cost of the orchestra, especially given Mozart’s extensive use of winds, is simply beyond Chorale’s means. I expected never to perform it, until this opportunity with Civic came up. In character, this Mass is very unlike the smaller masses with which Mozart preceded it: the brilliant orchestration, the virtuosic solo writing for soprano (composed specifically for Mozart’s wife, Constanze, and her sister), the varied, richly-textured choral writing (the fragment includes movements for four and five parts, two movements for double chorus, and a major fugue), and the pervasive emotional expressiveness, unusual during that period, far exceed the writing in his other masses. Clearly, this work was very important to Mozart at the time he was composing it, and he poured a good deal more of himself into it than was considered necessary in a liturgical mass.

I met with Maestro Kraemer this week, and we discussed various aspects of the work, along with his ideas and preferences. One thing he said, which really sticks with me: this is not a tragic work. Yes, it is grand, and reaches very far; Mozart had discovered J.S. Bach, and knew of the B Minor Mass, by this time, and clearly was inspired to compose a work which in its own way would be as transcendent as Bach’s. But he was young, hopeful, recently married, striking out on a successful career; he was not weighed down with debt, illness, fear of death, as he was when he composed his Requiem. Maestro Kramer was particularly concerned that the Kyrie movement not be too slow and ponderous; and he insisted that each movement, no matter the tempo, be clear, light, and dance-like.

Chorale is working hard to perform the in the style, and at the level, Maestro Kraemer expects. I am confident that all aspects of the performance will contribute to the growth of our technique, to our understanding of the style and genre, to our appreciation of the composer and a new understanding of the esteem in which he has been held ever since his own lifetime; and I expect the audience will be thrilled and changed, to share so deeply in this experience. Beyond that—I know this will be a wonderful concert, as much a treat for the listeners, as it will be for the musicians participating in it.

Free tickets are available through the Symphony Center box office; don’t miss this opportunity, to experience this wonderful music!

It's the repertoire

I distinctly remember that my college choral conductor, Weston Noble, had a couple of four-drawer file cabinets in his otherwise comfortable, uncluttered office-- cabinets that had nothing to do with his secretary, or with the daily operation of the music department. The drawers were always closed, and were not labeled. One time, he asked me to retrieve something from one of them-- and I discovered the rich and mysterious world of Weston’s single copies collection.   All of the drawers were stuffed with choral music; many of the pieces had notes written on them, notes paper-clipped to them; many were gathered in manila folders; many looked unused. I asked, in awe, have you conducted all of this music? No, he laughed, not even a tenth of it. He had gotten it from publishers, from composers, from conducting colleagues, from former students, from reading sessions. He also had a piano in his office, and would play through pieces at night, make notes, file some in folders labeled “openers,” “closers,” “light,” “next year,” “All-State” etc. He told me that his first priority as a conductor was selecting his choir, but that a close second was choosing appropriate repertoire. Any conductor accumulates a similar collection. Mine is enormous. The fact that I sang as a professional chorister for so many years, means that I not only have collected single copies, but also that I know a lot of music which I do not personally own. And like Weston, I periodically dig through my collection, as well as through my memories and my recordings, to find just the right piece for this or that. Sometimes, I explore my collection just for the joy of it, discovering pieces I did not even know I had. I am not so painstaking and organized as he was—I have stacks all over the place, unlabeled folders, single pieces lying on shelves and gathering dust but which I am loath to file, for fear I lose track of them.

I think the most important thing Weston told me, relative to his collection, was that there are millions of pieces of music out there, and one will never do all of them. Take the time to find what you love, and work on that; don’t waste energy on pieces to which you are not committed. You will lose interest; and your choir, and your audience, will sense your lack of engagement. Sure, a younger, less experienced conductor has to experiment, has to explore many possibilities, some of which turn out badly. I thank the many years I spent conducting a high-level church choir with a good library, for giving me the opportunity to try out hundreds of pieces; that, combined with my singing, gave me a wonderful opportunity to develop my own taste, to discover my musical passions, to explore style and technique in a concrete way.

I work no less hard now, than I did thirty years ago, choosing repertoire for a concert season. I wallow in possibilities, listen to recordings, awaken my family by playing through music late at night—and I go to my single copies collection, to find just the right piece to go where it is needed. Chicago Chorale’s 2014-15 season is in some ways easy, a slam dunk: Mozart’s ’Great’ Mass in C minor and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion both sit at the very top of the “great music” mountain, and both are personal favorites of mine. Our spring concert, though, will consist of a number of smaller works, focusing on the theme Da pacem Domine—Give peace, Lord-- works which must satisfy my personal taste, must complement one another within the larger structure of the program, must contribute to an overarching theme without bludgeoning the listener with it; works which must satisfy, even thrill, as individual statements, while forming a satisfying, uplifting, entertaining whole.

Chorale has now rehearsed twice this fall, and I am getting a feel for the sound and character of this particular group of singers. I’ll soon be able to choose appropriate repertoire for the spring, and the prospect really excites me.

Chorale Retreat

Each fall, at about this time, Chorale meets at a site other than our regular rehearsal venue, and spends an entire day, placing voices, reviewing our past, digging into our new repertoire, getting to know our new members, and leaving most of the outside world behind.  This year is no exception. We will meet this Saturday, September 27, at Ellis Avenue Church, and kick off our new season with a total immersion experience, from donuts and coffee to brats and beer. Chorale’s members live all over the Chicago region, from St. Charles to Northern Indiana, from Evanston to Crete. Some of them drive as much as two hours through rush hour traffic, every Wednesday, to get to rehearsals; they arrive just as the singing starts, and drive home as soon as it is over, and haven’t a lot of time, before and after rehearsal, to socialize with other members. And, because we tend to rehearse only once a week, it can be difficult for singers to remain fresh and engaged with the repertoire, and with Chorale’s approach to singing it. Membership could all too easily become an encapsulated blip on ones weekly radar, providing far less of the overall, exhilarating experience than we intend. Our opening retreat allows us to really roll around in our music, absorb the smell of it, and become comfortable with the people with whom we share it.

We start out drinking coffee and eating, of course. Our librarian, Erielle Bakkum, will distribute music—which, this fall, is Mozart’s Mass in C minor, ‘The Great’, which we will sing with Civic Orchestra of Chicago on November 24, at Symphony Center. We begin rehearsing, as always, with a period of vocal warm up, both because we need it, and to introduce our sound and production ideals to the new members. At this time they will meet our accompanist, Kit Bridges, whose leadership from the keyboard is so integral a part of our musicality. After warm up, we will divide into sections, and I will place the voices in each section in an order which is both most comfortable for the individual singers, and best sounding from the outside. Once placed, the choir will reconvene and begin work on the “easier” movements of the Mass, finding their sound, their balance, their “place in the choir.” After a break for lunch, Frisbee, and conversation, we will gather in the rehearsal space again, and continue rehearsing, touching on at least one of the more difficult movements (they are all difficult, whom am I trying to kid; but one with some challenging polyphony). Interspersed amongst both the morning and afternoon rehearsal periods, we will hear about “the state of the choir” from our board president, Angela Grimes, and be informed of specific details and housekeeping items by our managing director, Megan Balderston. In the meantime, Megan and a team of non-singing volunteers will take care of food, culminating in a bratwurst and beer celebration at the end of the day. By this time, many families, including children, will have arrived to join us in eating both the brats and all the other, potluck items members have provided.

Later in the Fall we will rehearse on a couple of Saturdays, as well, to help us keep our edge and forward momentum, right up to our conductor’s piano rehearsal with Nicholas Kraemer, who will take over at that point and conduct our performance with Civic.

A choir is so much more than a group of singers, each of whom turns their talent on and off at the touch of a button once a week. We are an “ensemble”—together, in so many senses. Without that togetherness, we tend to lose direction, motivation, commitment—and this loss shows up in the quality of our performances, as well as in the enthusiasm with which we sell tickets to our friends, and fill our halls. A choir that enjoys brats, beer, and Frisbee together, has an irreplaceable advantage, over one that does not.

For the Love of Singing

Last week, I wrote, “A professional ensemble has the luxury of choosing repertoire, then hiring a choir that can sing it; my job is somewhat more complicated and challenging—and never less than interesting.”   I have been thinking a lot, lately, about the divide between Chicago Chorale and the paying groups with whom we compete and share the stage, and about the broad implications of “amateurism” versus “professionalism.” Chicago Chorale is all about enriching, and transforming, the lives of its singers, as well as its audience. We seek, unapologetically, a high production standard, and high artistic achievement; and we seek to perform the very best music literature available. But we do this, not for commercial reasons, but because we are persuaded that people are changed, are moved to be better, to strive for better lives for themselves and others, through making music, themselves, the best they can do it.   Yes, some music is more difficult to understand, and execute, than other music. But we believe that our collection of singers can understand, and share in, the most profound works of the greatest composers; we believe that, given sufficient rehearsal time, training, motivation, and will, we can do as well as any commercially-motivated group of professional singers—and that our end product will be special, and individual, because of the growth of understanding that we have experienced through the often difficult process of preparing it. Chorale’s performances are not only “correct”; they are also imbued with the spiritual, emotional journey each singer, and the ensemble on the whole, encounters putting them together.

I have lived on both sides of this divide. I have made a lot of money over the years, singing in performances, on recordings, sometimes with wonderful ensembles, sometimes with ensembles that aren’t so great but that paid me to help them sound better than they would otherwise. I have been grateful for my talent and skill, grateful that conductors have hired me to sing the repertoire they have chosen. I have been grateful, as well, for the company of other highly skilled singers, who have made my own job quicker and easier. I have learned so very much through such experiences. I have taken great pride, and felt considerable pleasure, in pulling off major works with minimal rehearsal and maximum pay. Finally, though, I believe that the most fundamental and valuable work is done by groups like Chorale-- groups that change lives, that transform understanding, that touch everyday people with divine fire. My experiences in school and community groups, in college choirs, were not just steps along the way, training grounds that weeded out the less gifted and brought the chosen few forward toward the truth of professionalism; they were glorious experiences that turned me inside out when they happened, that made me who I am today. Along the way, I learned that I may be selfish and neurotic much of the time, but under the influence of great music I am made better, and have the wonderful opportunity of giving the best of myself. And I learned this long before I collected my first paycheck for singing.

Wouldn’t we all have more hope for our world, knowing that our doctor, our professor, our neighbor, our lawyer, our child’s kindergarten teacher, shared our love of making great music?

Summer’s placid surface is about to explode into the frenzy of Autumn.

Chorale has not presented its own concert since May—but the summer has not been quiet! An ensemble called Chicago Chorale (comprising Chorale members, past, present, and future, as well as other singers from the community) sang two concert preparations at Ravinia this summer: An Evening of Lerner and Loewe, and The Return of the King, which were a lot of work, a lot of fun, and made some money to help support our 2014-15 budget. And nothing else sat still, either. We are currently in the midst of moving to a new rehearsal venue (First Unitarian Church, 57^th and Woodlawn), which is more complicated than one might think, since it involves moving our piano and choral library, as well as working with a new church administration, a new contract, and a new set of regulations and behaviors. We are also preparing for another European Tour (our last was in 2011)—this time we will visit the Baltic countries, during July of 2015; and while not all Chorale members are involved, more than half will participate, and the entire venture must be “administered” from within the ensemble. Tour company, repertoire, itinerary, schedule of payments—none of these take summer vacations. I chose most repertoire for the 2014-15 season long ago. Planning for our performance of Mozart’s “Great” Mass in C minor with Civic Orchestra, under the direction of Nicholas Kraemer, at Symphony Center, November 24, has been underway for more than a year. Similarly, our performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which we will present at Rockefeller Chapel on March 29, has been in the works for a long time; the soloists, and most of the instrumentalists, had already been contracted by March. We even had a detailed rehearsal schedule before the end of July. Decisions about our spring concert, Da Pacem Domine, scheduled for June 13 at St. Vincent DePaul Parish, present a different sort of challenge: a cappella repertoire choices must reflect, more closely than large, orchestrated works, the specific voices we retain from the past season, as well as the new voices we choose through auditions; and this repertoire must be adaptable to the smaller ensemble that sings it on tour, as well. I have spent a good deal of time ordering and studying scores, and listening to recordings, and have compiled a short list; but I won’t be able to make final choices until I hear and have worked with this season’s choir. A professional ensemble has the luxury of choosing repertoire, then hiring a choir that can sing it; my job is somewhat more complicated and challenging—and never less than interesting.

Summers offer an opportunity to pull back, remember my training and performance experiences, think about what I love about music, recall the repertoire and performers that have particularly moved me, and really spend time with my choices. I entered this profession with ideals and excitement, which have been sharpened by wonderful teachers and training; too often, though, in the midst of actually preparing, and paying for, concerts, ideals are back-burnered, and one is compelled to think in terms of what sells, what works, what can one get away with, what will the ensemble tolerate, what can we afford. September through May can easily become a exercise in keeping ones head above water; June through August can be an antidote to that. I listen to recordings of earlier repertoire played by today’s top period ensembles, and remember the revelatory summers I spent at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute; I listen to Kiri Te Kanawa sing with her still-flawless technique and legato line, and reflect on my teachers, on how hard they worked to help me to understand, and execute, the same things; I explore the ever-growing body of new choral music, and try to decide for myself what is merely attractive, what is clever and intriguing, what will continue to excite and inspire me in the future. I listen to recordings of the incredible number of good choirs out there, compare them with the choirs I have sung in and the conductors I have worked with, and try to get past the flawless surface enabled by current recording techniques, and determine for myself if such and such a group, such and such a conductor, is doing really honest, exciting work. Some sleepless nights I spend three or four hours with YouTube, listening, watching, comparing, ordering CDs and single copies, writing emails to conducting colleagues and asking for suggestions and opinions.

Summer’s placid surface is about to explode into the frenzy of Autumn. I look forward to it!

The Liebeslieder texts: who was G. F. Daumer?

The title pages to both Liebeslieder Walzer Opus 52, and Neueliebeslieder Walzer, Opus 65, contain the subtitle Aus “Polydora” von Daumer.  I thought it prudent to track down this reference.  It turns out that philosopher and poet Georg Friedrich Daumer (1800-1875) was Brahms’ favorite poet; the composer set about twenty of Daumer’s poems, in addition to the thirty-two contained in the two sets of waltzes. I read that Daumer was particularly drawn to Persian poetry.  One of his best-known collections, entitled Hafis, published in two volumes (1846 and 1852), is actually a group of very free translations and imitations of songs by the fourteenth century Persian poet Hafiz, whose rhyming couplets, many of which concern love, wine, and nature, are traditionally interpreted allegorically by Sufic Muslims. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes Daumer as “an enemy of Christianity”-- and whatever this may mean, it does seem that Brahms, an agnostic, was drawn to Daumer’s anticlericalism, as well as to the mystical, lyrical, sensual quality of his poetry.

Daumer published another collection, also in two volumes, of translations and imitations of folk poetry, based on Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Turkish, Latvian, and Sicilian sources, in 1855, entitled Polydora: ein weltpoetisches Liederbuch.  In this collection, as well, Daumer is so free in his use of the source material, that one is hard-pressed to differentiate between his original work, and authentic folk poetry (if there really is such a thing).  Both volumes concern themselves with the many facets of love: longing, reluctance, denial, sadness, obsession, joy, rapture. Brahms chose eighteen of these poems for the earlier Liebeslieder Walzer, Opus 52.  These poems, and their settings, strike me as somewhat more positive and genial, even naive, than the fourteen he set in the second set, Opus 65.  The latter set, both poetry and music, deals more directly and specifically with the difficulties of amorous human relationships. Striking chromatic harmonies, jarring rhythms, and minor keys underscore the more serious nature of this latter opus. The music seems darker and more passionate-- and it is more difficult to perform.  Altogether, Opus 65 creates such tension, and potential problems for itself, that it seems Brahms can’t find anything in Daumer’s collections to tie things up and bring them to a satisfying conclusion-- so he turns, in the final song, Zum Schluß, to a verse by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), perhaps Germany's greatest poet, for a peaceful, soothing end, appealing to the muses, who alone, according to both composer and poet, can calm the stormy seas of the human condition. Interestingly, and brilliantly, Brahms, in abandoning Daumer, also abandons the waltz rhythm, replacing it with a serenade-like passacaglia, set in 9/4.  Listener and performer alike, I feel, are relieved to end the dancing and the arguing, and just agree to disagree.

Late in Daumer’s life, Brahms, who had never met the poet, or even corresponded with him, decided to pay him a visit.  As he later wrote to his friend, poet Klaus Groth, “in a quiet room I met my poet.  Ah, he was a little dried-up old man!...I soon perceived that he knew nothing either of me or of my compositions, or anything at all of music. And when I pointed to his ardent, passionate verses, he gestured, with a tender wave of his hand, to a little old mother almost more withered than himself, saying, ‘Ah, I have only loved the one, my wife!’”  I also read that Daumer, who had actually started out as a divinity student, re-embraced Christianity at the end of his life-- something Brahms never formally did.

Guest Blog: from Sarah Idzik

Chronic sleep deprivation is a serious thing. (This may not seem relevant to Chicago Chorale, but bear with me a moment.)

You only have to read a little about it to be terrified into attempting to prioritize a proper night’s sleep. The effects can range from increased risk of obesity and stroke to stress on your relationships to, of course, decreased daytime alertness. But the thing I worry about most is the effect on my cognitive functions—the idea that my ability to think and process information can actually be impaired by chronic lack of sleep.

Of course, this kind of thing can be hard to quantify or to anecdotally observe. In college admissions, the field in which I work, April is a notoriously difficult month, requiring absurd hours and strings of consecutive work days that, for me, reached a record 19 this month. All of which I assumed I was handling fine until Chorale rehearsal several Wednesdays ago.

I’ve sung enough Bach with Chorale by now that I have come to think of Bach’s choral works as something akin to very beautiful math. The precision required for Bach, for the constant motion and ever-changing chords and delicate texture and language, means that the singer must perform at his or her highest possible level of engagement, unrelentingly and at all times. And when all the singers are on the same page, the result is nothing less than the collective effervescence described by French philosopher Émile Durkheim. I know that about Bach going in by now.

My expectations for Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes were not so well-developed. I suppose some part of me assumed this would be easier: a secular spring concert, ostensibly lacking the scale or gravity of many of our other concerts, notably Bruckner’s E Minor Mass, which we just completed; even the concert postcard, cheerful in muted spring yellow, gives off an air of warmth and ease.

Until I showed up to that particular rehearsal with all the cognitive awareness of an actual sleepwalker, running on single-digit sleep hours for the week and a veritable metric ton of caffeine, and was—if you’ll excuse the colloquialism—completely and utterly schooled by Brahms.

These Liebeslieder Waltzes are not easy. They are nowhere near easy. They are quick, they are musically witty and restless, they are stylistically diverse, they change on a dime, they are in German. As Bruce pointed out in his April 1 blog post, Brahms “pulls out every trick” with these waltzes, and as a singer, you certainly feel it. They may be composed in a secular style, but this is not music that you get comfortable with easily. Every time I think I’m starting to fall into a rhythm, Brahms pulls the rug out from under me. It takes just about every unit of my brainpower, and every ounce of my intellectual flexibility and strength, to stay a step ahead—and what I found during that one particularly sleep-deprived rehearsal was that I could not fire every cylinder that Brahms demanded of me. I could manage intervals and dynamics, but then I’d stumble over the language; or else there was some other combination of compromises. I was perpetually a step behind, not able to achieve the whole. And it was immensely frustrating.

It was also a valuable lesson learned. The Liebeslieder Waltzes are wily and challenging and, yes, difficult—but, as with Bach, they are equally as gratifying and rewarding when sung correctly, and sung well. There are few things in this world more satisfying than successfully and deftly navigating a particularly difficult passage, and then putting your final consonant on at the exact moment as everyone else in your section—and I’m happy to say I’ve had some of those experiences too. This music requires so much work and energy, but it pays dividends in the end, for the singers and for our audience. Sleep is only one part of the responsibility we take on as a choir in order to present this music, and all of its nuances, well.

The other lesson learned here is that Bruce would, of course, never program a concert without works that challenge us and our audience, and that give us opportunities to grow, learn, and succeed in ways we haven’t before. It is why I am so thankful to be a member of this group.

I’m excited to be well-rested enough to give the Liebeslieder Waltzes the energy they deserve, and am equally as excited to present them to our audience on May 18.

The Language Wars

The single most important difference between singers and instrumentalists is, that singers express through words.  The sounds of words, and the meanings of words.  The meanings of individual words, and the ideas expressed by many words strung together.  Singers who do not care much about words and text, or who lack sensitivity to the sounds of language, have a harder time being successful; choral conductors who lack interest in literature, and lack training in teaching both the sounds and the meanings of words to their singers, in several languages, are at a real disadvantage. A choral concert, like a song recital, is all about words.  Whether a choir sings in its native language (in Chorale’s case, American English), in one of several versions of Latin, or in the handful of other languages which are set in the choral canon, singers put a considerable amount of effort into learning basic sounds, and then into regularizing pronunciation across the ensemble.  Oft-times, ones own vernacular is the most difficult:  each native speaker has his/her personal pronunciation, influenced by regional dialect, and sings this version unreflectively, without listening to or thinking about what other members of the ensemble are singing.  When I sang in German with the Gächinger Kantorei, a choir of German singers in Stuttgart, I found that the group had “word police”:  a designated member would assert a particular, formal version of German pronunciation, and then insist, with the help of other members, that individual members shed their regional and personal dialects in favor of this uniform version—a version none of them actually spoke in day to day life.  I witnessed a related phenomenon when I studied at the Nice Conservatory with Gérard Souzay, a notably impatient, exacting teacher.  He insisted on formal, “classical” pronunciation from all of us, but was particularly hard on native French speakers; when they would sing French texts with modern, conversational pronunciation (for example, uvular r’s), he would explode at them, accusing them of demeaning their native language, and the great poetry they had inherited.

Chicago Chorale’s current concert preparation includes pieces in German (Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes), French (Poulenc’s Les chemins de l’amour), Lowland Scots (Vaughan Williams’ arrangement of Robert Burns’ poem, Ca’ the Yowes), Nynorsk (Grieg’s song Våren), and American English (Jerome Kern’s All the Things You Are).  The Brahms pieces take up forty minutes of our program, and are a lot of work for our singers; but Chorale frequently sings in German, and a piece in German is required of all singers who audition for us—theoretically, we are all aware of the formal pronunciation required of the Gächinger Kantorei (and of every other ensemble singing serious German texts), and know how to work on it.  French is very difficult for us-- many French sounds don’t exist in American English, and most Americans have a poor grasp of how to reproduce these sounds, even when we hear them spoken or sung accurately. Fortunately, the formal pronunciation of French is as prescribed as that of German:  there is a right answer; and because the chorus portion of the song is limited and repetitive, a passable pronunciation can be beat into our heads, with enough time and concentration.

Våren is our biggest problem.  Nynorsk was the brainchild of nineteenth century Norwegian academics and nationalists, who sought to combine aspects of the many regional dialects and variants of spoken Norwegian, into a single spoken and written language, which would help to differentiate both the language, and the Norwegian culture, from that of the Danes who had ruled them for hundreds of years.  Several poets, among them Våren’s author, Åamund Olofsson Vinje, created a new literature reflecting this new language—but the language was theoretical, in constant flux, and beset with rules which did not necessarily work in the minds, ears, and mouths of its intended speakers. Perusal of the many versions of Våren on Youtube reveals as many versions of the pronunciation, as there are recordings—and an equally bewildering number of spelling variants, in those cases in which the words have been reproduced. Though Norwegian children are required to study Nynorsk in school, the language does not seem to have caught on in the complete and unifying way its inventors intended:  Bokmål, the country’s formal language, has steadily moved away from Danish over the past 150 years, taking on characteristics of Nynorsk, anyhow, and seems to be eliminating the need for the new language.  In the meantime, though, we have the problem presented by having to sing this invented language properly—a language which, practically speaking, exists in no canonic, workable version.  We have settled upon a particular pronunciation, provided by Jone Helesøy, a Norwegian woman who happens to be my son’s kindergarten teacher, and are blocking out the variations which lure us to other sources—and we expect that few in our audience will know the difference, anyhow.

Robert Burns’ poem, Ca’ the Yowes (which appears to have existed in some from before he was born, but which he wrote down, and to which he added his own verses), is written in Lowland Scots, and basically utilizes the sounds which became Mid-Atlantic, American English.  We recognize them, can mimic them; our problem is basically to learn them, to do our homework.  All the Things You Are challenges us to be thoughtful about our own language, to treat it is carefully as we would a foreign language, to pronounce uniformly across the group, to ”sing the sounds of language, rather than the language itself,” as Robert Shaw often said.  No easy thing, with a text so familiar and beloved as this one; I often feel like the very chief of the language police.

All this, we do for our own enjoyment—and also for yours!  Please come and hear the results of our hard work, on Sunday, May 18, 2 PM, at the Logan Center.

Guest Blog: from Megan Balderston

What’s in a name? Artistic Director Bruce Tammen mentioned in his last blog that our affectionate, behind-the-scenes name for this concert in its planning stages was “Chorale Goes Rogue.” Longtime followers of Chicago Chorale may be aware that our programming is adventurous and eclectic; one thinks of the “Northern Light” concert that featured twentieth century music of the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, with the choir singing in four or five different languages.

The dictionary definitions of rogue tend to have negative connotations, or at the minimum focus on deviance rather than deviation. We are using the following definition of rogue: “A person or thing that behaves in an aberrant or unpredictable way.” What, exactly, is our deviant behavior? Well, in this case, it is simply the fact that we are not singing music with religious text, in a (traditionally) sacred space. That said, this concert leans close to our traditional norm in style and composers. One big difference, to me, is the breadth of language we are working through in this concert. It’s one thing for us to sing religious texts in German; we’ve sung the entire mass and many Bible verses so often that German is second nature for many of us. This concert, however, features poetry in Nynorsk, German, French, English…and English with a Scottish pronunciation. But because we are singing poetry, even the German is not familiar to everyone. This means that we have to spend time with the group and on our own to understand how these languages sound and what the text means. Last week I listened to and practiced our Nynorsk piece so much that by the end of one session, I almost believed I could speak the language. For example, French is not intuitive to me at all and I plan many listening/practice sessions with Poulenc in my future. Singers have to create a mood with their phrasing, diction, and use of the language; proper pronunciation and emphasis is key. Ideally, the audience doesn’t notice the language when it’s done well, but it is jarring when it’s not. We work hard to make the language aspect second nature to ourselves, and invisible to the listener.

As a singer and managing director of the group, I am finding that the music is difficult to describe. In its earliest planning stages, we joked: “And then, after we work on the Bruckner mass, let’s do a concert of only show tunes!” As the idea of a secular concert took hold, Bruce took on the challenge of planning this concert over the course of the last two years, and was able to find a number of works arranged for full choir that hit all of the requirements we set for ourselves in Chorale. The works themselves are hauntingly beautiful and treacherously difficult, though I won’t tell you which is which. Bruce found a wonderful representation of secular music, in a wide variety of forms, from waltz to torch song. And the concert does in fact have a gorgeous and complex “show tune” in its midst.

Ultimately, though, this concert is about love: obsessive and complicated love, in the Brahms. Love of nature, in the Grieg. Love of country and the fair maiden, in the Vaughan Williams. Unrequited love, in the Kern. And of course, lost love in the Poulenc. So, love is the unifying theme and a subject that we could explore for years.

But it’s also about love in a different way—the love for singing. The Brahms Liebeslieder and Neue Liebeslieder Waltzes are tricky, but fun. They are, essentially, a couple dozen songs about different stages of love, all written in waltz form: reminiscent of sprightly dances and drinking songs, utilizing sweet poetry and varying in subject matter from wry observations to infatuation to deep despair. And the other side of this program is a set of wonderful songs. They’re the kind of songs that make one sigh deeply at the end, both beautiful and satisfying in their emotion, in their chord progressions, and artistry. Another surprise for our audience will be the variety of solos featured in this concert. Chicago Chorale is made up of a wide range of individual voices. I believe that when you hear some of our singers individually you will marvel, as I do, at the great variety and talent within Chorale’s depths.

We look forward to seeing you at our concert on May 18.

Very Warm for May--Chorale goes rogue

Our working title for Chorale’s upcoming concert has been, from the beginning, “Chorale Goes Rogue.”  The theme preceded both the repertoire and the venue;  one of our board members half-seriously suggested that we surprise our audience by singing some secular music, and the title was born.  I have to say, we have not strayed far from our canonic center; our composers—Brahms, Grieg, Vaughan Williams, Poulenc—are hardly unfamiliar names to either our singers or our audience; and even Jerome Kern, whose music we also will sing, would not feel out of place with our frequent offerings by German Romantic composers.  Kern has more in common with Schoenberg and Bruckner, than he has with most of today’s popular music… Most of the music we are preparing for our May 18 concert is composed by Johannes Brahms—the Liebeslieder (Opus 52) and Neue Liebeslieder (Opus 65) Waltzes.  Serious, melancholy, elegiac Brahms, in a playful mood, bent his considerable talent and skill toward the composition of popular waltzes in the style of Johann Strauss, for the bourgeois, educated public to perform in their own homes. The results sold well and made him some money.  I read that Brahms explored two such popular genres, the other being the “Hungarian,” or “gypsy” style piano and vocal works, which similarly endeared him to his public, paid his bills, and made the composition of his larger, more serious works feasible.  In no respect are these works simple to perform, flippant or “tossed off”—Brahms’ craft and technique, as well as the originality and genius of his personal voice, are always present, and he pulls every trick, subverts his chosen genre at every turn, expressing sheer enjoyment and mastery with every phrase.  Singers and pianists alike are challenged to give all they have, in bringing this music to life; yet one senses, throughout, the beer, cigars, and brandy that have come to represent the composer’s daily life in Vienna, his adopted home.

Our Francis Poulenc offering, Les chemins de l’amour, exemplifies the second half of the phrase with which critic Claude Rostand, in a July 1950 Paris-Presse article, described the composer: “half monk, half guttersnipe” ("le moine et le voyou"), a tag that has been attached to his name ever since. Originally composed as part of the incidental music to Léocadia (1940), a play by Jean Anouilh, the song took on a life of its own after being performed by its dedicatee, popular cabaret singer Yvonne Printemps, and became one of Poulenc’s most successful compositions.  It does with French cabaret song, what the Liebeslieder do with the Viennese waltz:  it simultaneously embraces popular expression, and ups its game. Poulenc’s original is a solo song, with piano accompaniment; Chorale will sing an arrangement which utilizes both soloist and chorus.

Edvard Grieg’s song Våren represents an entirely different genre.  The words, by poet Åamund Olofsson Vinje, present an idealized picture of the natural world, as seen through the eyes of an elderly person who has survived the harsh Norwegian winter to see another springtime.  The poetry is written in Nynorsk, which is essentially an invented language, dating from nineteenth century Norway, combining elements of many regional dialects, an expression of nationalistic solidarity at the time Norway was moving toward independence from Denmark.  Grieg bought whole-heartedly into Norwegian nationalism, and devoted much of his compositional career to mining the riches of regional folk music and poetry; he set many of Vinje’s poems, and helped to popularize the new language.  Grieg’s original version is a song accompanied by piano; Thomas Beck has arranged the song for a cappella choir with soprano solo.

Ca’ the Yowes is a beloved Scottish folksong setting of a poem by Robert Burns.  One finds many versions of it on Youtube, sung by popular folk singers and accompanied by a wide variety of instruments.  English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams spent much of his career collecting and writing down the folk songs and hymns of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; some of them he published “as is,” and some he arranged for a variety of choral and instrumental ensembles.  Ca’ the Yowes, a shepherd’s love song for tenor solo and a cappella choir, is undoubtedly one of his finest arrangements, and one of the most beautiful folk song arrangements in the choral literature.  Not only is it living proof of Vaughan Williams’ contention that the folk music of the British Isles was one of the great musical treasures of the world; it also demonstrates his personal affection for this music, and his genius in giving it just the right opportunity to shine.

All the Things You Are, one of the most popular and enduring pieces in the “the American songbook,” first came to life as an extended production number in the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May, presented on Broadway in 1939.  The play ran for only two months, but the song itself has endured as a standard concert vehicle for many singers.  Music for the original Broadway show, including the production number built around this song, disappeared, to be rediscovered in the early 1980’s.  The show has since been revived and presented on both coasts, with this production number intact.  I sang it in a concert presentation at Grant Park back in the early 1980’s, as a member of the chorus, and am overjoyed to finally have concert circumstances which allow me to present it, myself.  Jerome Kern really knew how to write music.

March 16: Bruckner and His Contemporaries

Many years ago I took a graduate course on James Joyce’s Ulysses.  Two themes dominated that ten-week period, for me:  first, Joyce’s own statement, that one would need his (Joyce’s) education, to understand his book; the other, that one should be able to read the book, cover to cover, with no outside help, and be enthralled by it, understand on ones own terms that it is a great book.  I did not have time for the latter:  the pressure of papers and tests was too great, and I was responsible for too much information; and, though I did what I could about the former, reading always with two or three reference books open to both sides of the principle text, checking everything I did not recognize, I really could not re-educate myself sufficiently to personalize much of what Joyce was saying.  In the end, I had but a partial grasp of a major work, and went on with the rest of my schooling, feeling inadequate at best.  I have read the book a couple of times since, and know it better now, than I did forty years ago; but just to glance at my copy of it, in my bookshelf, is to be humbled.  I will never know that book. What I did learn from that experience, and others like it, was to take this two-pronged approach with any work, especially any musical work that I propose to perform (since that is my profession).  If I have an inkling that I will be inspired by, even knocked over by, some piece (and years of experience do sharpen my senses in this respect), I put it on an “active” list, await an opportunity to program it, and then set myself to studying it—the work itself, music and text—as well as its composer, history, and context.  I begin with my emotional, visceral, response; but then I seek explanation, corroboration, for my response, and look for ways to explain the piece, to talk about it, excite others about it.  Confronted with numerous interpretive possibilities, I explore the tradition, the conventions, and attempt to make informed decisions about what I will do with it, myself.  Effectively, I deconstruct the work, consider as many of its facets as I can deal with, and then place it within my own, or the ensemble’s and audience’s own, context.

For the past several weeks I have studied, and written about, the craft and the context of Bruckner’s Mass in E minor.  In planning the concert, I programmed small motets as introduction to our performance of the Mass, which would provide context for me, for the singers, for the audience, and serve as an appropriate setting for this major work.  I listened to, and studied, numerous recordings, of both the motets and the Mass, to try and understand, learn from, the work of other conductors and ensembles, who have already dealt with the questions that confront me, and have come up with working solutions.  In rehearsing the pieces, I have made practical, necessary adjustments in response to Chorale’s experience learning and singing them.

Finally, though, I return to my initial, visceral response to the music; attempt if necessary to wean myself away from all the “right answers” I have studied, to discard the reference books, and immerse myself, once again, in the powerful, special beauty that attracted me to all of these pieces, large and small, in the first place, hoping that my own imagination and musicality will alchemically combine with the work, and produce an interpretation, a performance, which is honest and personal at the same time, satisfying both me and the composer.

I first encountered Bruckner, through his motet Os justi (which we will sing on this program), when I was nineteen years old, long before I began thinking about music.  Singing was almost entirely a mode of emotional expression for me, at that time-- and Os justi hit me right where I lived, where things most mattered.  It was my gateway to Bruckner—a gateway that has never closed. It has been an endless thrill, an ever-intensifying emotional journey, to work on his Mass in E minor these past three months; and no amount of deconstruction, nor reading and consideration of critical commentary, has undermined that initial infatuation.  Though I tremble before Bruckner’s honesty and genius, and fear falling short of the work’s demands, I am as excited as I can be, looking forward to our performance on March 16.

Back to Bruckner

At the same time that the “serious” music world in Germany was being revolutionized, radicalized, and torn apart by the New German School, pitting Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner against Mendelssohn, Brahms, and their conservative supporters, the Roman Catholic Church was experiencing its own musical cataclysm, called the Cecilian movement.  Bruckner’s music cannot be understood without considering the latter movement as carefully as the former. Named for Saint Cecilia, patroness of music, the Cecilian movement was based in Regensburg, Germany, home of a world-renowned school for church musicians, and to a cathedral choir devoted to polyphony and chant.  By 1800, Gregorian chant had all but disappeared from Catholic masses, replaced by music described as “entertaining” and “operatic,” augmented by generous use of orchestral instruments, in addition to the organ.  Many musicians and clergy identified such music as unduly profane, seductive, achieving its aims through “effect rather than piety.” They organized themselves into the Cecilian movement in 1868, and promoted a renewed interest in chant as well as in the polyphony of such 16^th century composers as Palestrina, Lassus, and Victoria. Many advocated ridding church music of instruments entirely (based upon their erroneous belief that 16^th century polyphony, labeled a cappella, had been performed without accompaniment).  Along with restoring archaic musical expression, they sought restoration of what they deemed to be traditional religious feeling, and of the authority of the church, both of which they felt had waned during the 18^th century.

As a boy, and again as a young man, Bruckner was murtured, then employed, in the Augustinian monastery of St. Florian.  Ignaz Traumihler, music director at St. Florian at the time, subscribed to the Cecilian movement, and greatly influenced the youthful Bruckner.   The latter dedicated his motet, Os justi, composed in 1879, to Traumihler, and wrote to him, "I should be very pleased if you found pleasure in the piece. It is written entirely without any sharps or flats, and without the chord of the seventh, and without any 6-4 chords, and also without any chordal combinations of four and five simultaneous notes."  Bruckner composed the entire motet in the ancient Lydian church mode, which to later ears sounds a lot like F Major, but without any B flats, and managed to achieve striking harmonic effects without, as he writes, using a single sharp or flat note. ABA' in structure, the work features similar, homophonic, music in the two A sections, and polyphony in the B section, and concludes with a plainchant Alleluia. Bruckner’s skillful infusion of Romantic feeling into a spare, archaic choral language is unique; he seems bent on demonstrating here his gratitude and loyalty to Traumihler and St. Florian, but not to the Cecilian movement. The motet was published in 1886 in a collection entitled Four Graduals, which together rank as some of the most radical and original liturgical settings in the 19^th century, and actually distance the composer, in many respects, from the ideals of the Cecilians.

Bruckner’s Mass in E minor, first composed and performed in 1866, and then revised in 1882, is also discussed in terms of Cecilian influence. Its unusual orchestral accompaniment—fifteen mixed woodwind and brass instruments, and no strings-- is seen by some as the composer’s bow to the Cecilians:  much of the Mass is polyphonic and a cappella, adhering in large part to the dictates of the conservatives, with the instruments serving as colorful punctuation and augmentation, rather than as structural underpinning.  Bruckner even quotes Palestrina’s Missa Brevis in the Sanctus, in homage to the Renaissance master. The Bishop of Linz, Franz Joseph Rudiger, for whom the Mass was composed-- sympathetic to the Cecilians, and a great admirer of Palestrina-- was reported to have been deeply impressed by the Mass, and Bruckner himself recalled its premier as “the most glorious day of my life,” a phenomenal and unanimous success.  Nonetheless, some critics pointed out what they viewed as his “extremely, elaborately wrought chromaticism,” and condemned the work as “indecently alluring.”  As a result, it was not performed at St. Peter’s, in Rome, until 1952.

Not Even Close to Bruckner: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

My goal in programming Chorale’s March 16 concert, was to present repertoire that I find very beautiful, and that I thought our singers, and the audience, would enjoy.  I had no intention of presenting a didactic lecture-recital; just music that goes well together, fits well under one umbrella (in this case, Austro-German Romanticism), but offers at the same time some variety and interesting juxtaposition.  Like—a major, accompanied work, juxtaposed to some smaller, a cappella pieces; Catholic music, as opposed to Lutheran; earlier, as opposed to late.  But I find, in the course of studying the music we are preparing-- both the scores themselves, and critical literature about them-- that I am increasingly interested in the split that seems universally acknowledged, right down the middle of the nineteenth century musical world.  Over and over I read about the Wagner wing versus the Brahms wing; the labels, though general and over-simple, really do stick.  And I discover that some of my personal reactions to these composers and their music, over the years and in many different contexts, are illuminated by what I read about this split. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847) was pretty much an exact contemporary of Berlioz (1803), Schumann (1810), Liszt (1811) and Wagner (1813).  A fertile ten years. These composers knew of one another’s work, mostly were acquainted with one another, were in some cases very close to one another.  Of the five, Mendelssohn was by far the most conservative, while three of the remaining men, Liszt, Wagner, and Berlioz, are identified as founders and leaders of the radical New German School. Schumann, an experimental visionary in some respects and a startlingly original voice, came to be identified with the conservatives in later years, partly because of his support for Brahms.

In his private letters, Mendelssohn expresses his disapproval of the New Germans and their works, for example writing of Liszt that his compositions were "inferior to his playing, and only calculated for virtuosos,” and of Berlioz's overture Les francs- juges, "the orchestration is such a frightful muddle that one ought to wash one's hands after handling one of his scores.”  The Leipzig Conservatory, which he founded, became, under his direction, a bastion of his conservative outlook, training its students in the same time-honored disciplines that J.S. Bach and his peers had learned, and practiced, in the eighteenth century.

Mendelssohn’s wealthy, well-connected family had a connection with J.S. Bach.  His aunt, Sarah Levy, had been a pupil of Bach’s son, W.F. Bach, and patron of another son, C.P.E. Bach. She collected a significant number of Bach family manuscripts, which she bequeathed to the Berlin Singakademie, of which the Mendelssohn family were leading supporters.  As well, Mendelssohn‘s grandmother, Bella Salomon, came into possession of a copy of the manuscript of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which she gave to her grandson. His study of the score inspired him to present a performance of the work with the aforementioned Berlin Singakademie in 1829 (he was only twenty years old, but a famous prodigy, and wealthy enough to make the necessary arrangements)-- the first performance of the Passion since Bach’s death in 1750.  Mendelssohn’s enthusiasm for Bach, and heroic efforts on his behalf, sparked a general rediscovery of Bach‘s music, one which continues even in our own time, and influenced every composer who followed him, on both sides of the ideological divide.  One of the ironies of this divide was, that both sides claimed Bach as forefather: he was big enough to have something to offer to both the radicals and the conservatives.

Mendelssohn, though classed as a Romantic, did not change or grow much, stylistically, over the course of his career; the influence exerted on him by Bach and Handel lasted throughout his short life, and continued to be expressed somewhat literally in the music he composed, while other Romantic composers adapted what they learned from the Baroque and Classical masters, made it their own, and then moved on.   This is not to denigrate the strength and integrity of Mendelssohn’s personal voice; rather, I suggest that he seems to have been content to take only a few steps into the future, and to have remained there.  Some writers explain this by saying that he was so busy with his many projects—travelling, conducting, teaching, composing, writing, editing—that he had no chance to focus on personal growth and change.  He was immensely successful in his own time, and did not live long enough to find himself eclipsed.

Part of what Mendelssohn inherited from his models was a profound love of choral music—both large oratorios in the style of Handel, and smaller cantatas and motets reminiscent of Bach.  Both strains in his composition made him very popular in England, home to a robust choral tradition in both areas. He visited England several times, learned to speak the language, composed music with English words for English singers and listeners, and developed a large following.  In 1832, the Novello publishing house, in London, commissioned him to compose a set of the morning and evening canticles for the Anglican service, with organ accompaniment. He completed a setting of the Te Deum just a few months later, but it was not published until 1846.  In 1847, just a few months before his death, he completed the Jubilate, Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis movements, which were published later that year by Ewer and Company, with English texts. In a letter to the publisher, Mendelssohn wrote that he did not want the canticles published in Germany.  Who knows why? His wishes were not obeyed; they eventually were published, in German translations but without the organ part, under the title Drei Motetten, Opus 69.

Chorale will sing #1, Nunc Dimittis, but in German, and under its German title, Herr, nun lässesr du deinen Dienen in Frieden fahren. The strength of his melodic material, the clarity of his counterpoint, the harmonic movement—all point to the influence of J.S. Bach, though the actual sound of the music is clearly 19th century, and far too lovely to be purely derivative;  Mendelssohn was a good composer.

REALLY Not Bruckner: Johannes Brahms

Chorale will present a motet by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, Op. 29 no.1, on our March 16 concert.  Josef Rheinberger, whom I discussed last week, and whose Abendlied we will also perform, was a minor, regional composer who likely had no personal contact with Anton Bruckner (the composer upon whom our program focuses); Brahms, on the other hand, is a major figure in Western music, and his compositions, and ideas, must figure prominently in any discussion of Bruckner. By 1859, the “New German School,” whose principle figures included Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, and Hector Berlioz, had become a recognized and powerful entity. (Note that two of these three men are not even German!)  Both Bruckner and Brahms admired Wagner’s music, and Brahms admired Liszt as a pianist; but Brahms, along with his supporters Clara Schumann, Eduard Hanslick, and violinist Joseph Joachim, became increasingly disturbed over what they considered the excesses of Wagner’s music, while Bruckner was becoming increasingly identified with Wagner.

Concurrently, Brahms premiered his Piano Concerto in D Minor at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, where he received a hostile reception from the audience–he was hissed off the stage–and from the press. This experience, rather than discouraging him, may have forced him to take a public stand in the debate over the future of German music. A manifesto signed by himself, Joachim, and others, published in Berliner Musik-Zeitung Echo, states that “...the products of the leaders and students of the so-called New German School can only be condemned and deplored as contrary to the innermost essence of music.” This “innermost essence” for Brahms has to do with his preference for “absolute music”–music that stands on its own merit, without reference to a setting or literary allusion. He maintained a Classical sense of form and order in his works – in contrast to the opulence and irregularity of the music of many of his contemporaries. Thus, his admirers saw him as the champion of traditional forms and "pure music," who practiced “refinement of inspiration through craftsmanship.”

Brahms had studied and performed a number of J.S. Bach’s cantatas, and undoubtedly found in Bach’s work a prime example of “pure music.” He composed his motet Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, based on a sixteenth-century chorale by Paul Speratus, in July, 1860, soon after the publication of his manifesto. In doing so, he directly references Bach, who was an important symbol for nineteenth-century Germany, not only of musical tradition, but also of national pride and of cultural history. He composes his own version of a Bach “type”-- a harmonized statement of a pre-existent chorale tune, followed by a fugue in which not only the subject derives from the chorale tune, but a cantus firmus bass restates that tune, a procedure reminiscent of the opening chorus to Bach's Cantata #4, Christ lag in Todesbanden. The partner motet in Op. 29, Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein rein Herz, is similarly based on a model taken directly from Bach.

Coming, as they do, directly on the heels of his manifesto, these motets seem to be Brahms’ challenge to the direction the New German School was taking. Subsequent to this period, Brahms is identified as the conserver of the old ways, while Bruckner is heard as the cacophonous voice of the future.  I find, surveying the literature available to me, that this dichotomy, and rivalry, exist to this day, with performers and critics alike taking one side or another in a controversy which should have died 150 years ago.

Interestingly enough, the two composers seem to have borne one another no ill will, and to have admired one another’s music; Bruckner even attended Brahms’ funeral. Brahms is known to have admired Wagner, and Bruckner to have admired Schumann, Brahms’ principle mentor.  After this one flirtation with polemic, Brahms put politics away and focused on composing music; Bruckner expressed nothing whatsoever about other composers, only commenting, about the critic Eduard Hanslick, "I guess Hanslick understands as little about Brahms as about Wagner, me, and others. And the Doctor Hanslick knows as much about counterpoint as a chimney sweep about astronomy."

Not Bruckner: Josef Rheinberger

For the past few weeks my reading, and consequent blogs, focused on Anton Bruckner, a strange and wonderful man and composer, whose ground-breaking compositions, influenced by Liszt and Wagner but startlingly original, puzzled and sometimes outraged his contemporaries, and propelled German Romantic music into the twentieth century.  Chorale's March 16 concert, though focused largely on Bruckner’s E minor Mass, will also include some a cappella motets by composers whose ideas, goals, and aesthetics were far different from his.

Our concert will begin with Abendlied, by Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (1839-1901).  Though born in the principality of Liechtenstein, Rheinberger spent most of his life in Munich, where he studied at the Royal Conservatory, and later became professor of organ and composition, first at the Royal Conservatory, later at the Royal Music School.    I read that he was a child prodigy, serving as organist in his home parish church at the age of seven and composing his first mass, for three voice parts with organ accompaniment, at the age of eight. His talents were acknowledged and encouraged by those around him, and he was only eleven years old when he moved to Munich and enrolled in the conservatory.  His keyboard and aural skills, as well as his self-confidence, were legendary:  one particularly telling anecdote has him simultaneously sight-reading and transposing Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, to the astonishment and delight of his listeners.

Renowned conductor Hans von Bülow claimed that Rheinberger was “unequalled anywhere in or near Germany” as a composition teacher, and more than six hundred composition students, from throughout Europe and America, studied with him during the last forty years of his life.  His own works—and presumably his pedagogical principles-- combined the current, conservative traditions of Munich ‘s Roman Catholic church music, with those of the Viennese classical period. Their clarity and classic structure and lack of emotional content aligned Rheinberger with the most reactionary musicians and musical trends of his time, which rejected Wagnerian aesthetics and “the music of the future,” at the very time when Bruckner, in Vienna, was adapting Wagner’s language and being labeled an incomprehensible radical.  I don’t know if the two men ever met, or if Rheinberger was even aware of Bruckner; I expect he would have hated the latter’s music, if he knew of it.  History, of course, was on Bruckner’s side; Rheinberger was esteemed and admired by like-minded musicians of his own time, but he never won universal fame, and most of his music, with the exception of his organ compositions, is not well-known today.  In his last years he became increasingly aware that his compositions had become outdated and unwanted, and responded by writing, shortly before his death, “There is no justification for music without melodiousness and beauty of sound... music never ought to sound brooding, for, basically, it is the outpouring of joy, and even in pain knows no pessimism.” This sounds like the sort of thing Eduard Hanslick was referring to when he wrote of Bruckner’s “nightmarish hangover style” at much the same time.

Rheinberger deserves better, than to be left choking in Bruckner’s dust.  His music is lovely, delicate, perfectly constructed and balanced.  I would not program Abendlied if I did not think it a fine piece, in and of itself.  Listeners will appreciate its fine qualities, and be lulled by its beauty. Rheinberger hasn’t the power, or the will, to shake them to their very foundations.  Bruckner, on the other had, seems unable to be able to avoid doing so.

Weird, Biographical Bruckner

John Eliot Gardiner’s new biographical study of J.S. Bach, Music in the Castle of Heaven, takes up where Bach’s other biographers leave off. Gardiner exhaustively combines all he can find about the cultural milieu in which Bach flourished, adds his own feelings and impressions based upon a life of studying and performing Bach’s music, and makes some educated guesses about the sort of man Bach was, and about why he acted and produced as he did.  Quite a task:  Bach did not purposefully leave much information about himself, and no one else followed him around, keeping track of him.  In general, composers of his time, and preceding him, did not do so; their works, rather than their biographies, are their legacy.  The growing fascination with the lives of composers, both on the part of the public and in the expression of the composers themselves, began about the time of Mozart’s death, exploded with Beethoven, and has been commonplace ever since; a composer like Ned Rorem is arguably better known and celebrated for what he writes about himself, than for his music.  The life stories and opinions of Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, Mahler, Barber and Menotti, are an art form in themselves. We are fascinated with biography, factual and fanciful.

I commonly read up on the composer in question when preparing a major work with Chorale-- I want to know what I can, both to help in preparing the music, and to aid me in writing program notes.  I don’t pretend to be a musicologist, but I also don’t want to perform in a vacuum.  Anton Bruckner, composer of our current project, led a well-documented life, which has inspired not only books and articles, but movies; nonetheless, as the Wikipedia article about him states, the “apparent dichotomy between Bruckner the man and Bruckner the composer hampers efforts to describe his life in a way that gives a straightforward context for his music.”  Read about his life, and you encounter one man; experience his music, and you encounter quite another.

Those who study Bruckner’s life describe him as relatively simple. provincial man, with modest tastes and aspirations, who saw little of the world.  We aren’t aware of self-aggrandizing fantasies, megalomania, even pride or arrogance; he seems to have spent the first half of his life without any plans or intentions beyond being a school teacher and church organist.  Karl Grebe writes, "his life doesn't tell anything about his work, and his work doesn't tell anything about his life, that's the uncomfortable fact any biography must start from."  He worked hard and constantly, first in preparation for teaching, then at his musical studies; he seemed surprised at the fame that came his way, and accepted it with humility and self-effacement.

We do know of a few oddities about Bruckner.  One was his obsessive-compulsiveness, known as numeromania in his time-- he was compelled to count things:  leaves on trees, blades of grass, bars of his compositions, the pearls on a friend’s dress.  He completed the first version of his Mass in E minor in November 1866, and soon thereafter was admitted to a sanatorium, where he remained for nearly a year, recovering from complete nervous collapse.  We also know that he often demonstrated a morbid fascination with death and dead bodies, and very explicitly required that his own corpse be embalmed.  Strangest of all, though, was his fascination with teenage girls—specifically, with marrying one: he proposed to many young girls, all of whom refused him, right up to and past his 70^th birthday.  He listed the names of girls who appealed to him in his calendar and his diaries, and at one time was accused of “impropriety” with his female students. In the end, he died a bachelor.

Eduard Hanslick, an influential music critic who lived and worked in Vienna during Bruckner’s productive years, particularly disliked Bruckner’s music and it’s relationship to the music of Wagner and Liszt, and frequently attacked him in print, at one point referring to the “nightmarish hangover style” of Bruckner’s symphonies.  Hanslick championed Brahms, and was able to instigate, through his writings, a feud between the followers of the two stylistic camps—a feud in which, incidentally, neither Brahms nor Bruckner participated.   There is something about Hanslick’s phrase, overblown though it is, which rings true-- so much more happens in Bruckner’s music than the waking, placid surface of his biography, and of his outward intentions, suggests—he revolutionized the form, content, procedures, of the Romantic symphony, from within himself, seemingly without intending to do anything so radical. And the seeds of his symphonies lie in his masses, where he worked out his ideas, again without claiming or announcing any intent to do so.  In his attempt to hang on to the older style, Hanslick was probably right to focus his vitriol on Bruckner; the latter, in his persona as a simple provincial man, may not have recognized what his inner person was doing, but that inner person was changing the musical landscape in ways that would define the future of music.

Religious Bruckner

Wilhelm Furtwängler:  “In the history of European art, Bruckner is one of those very rare geniuses endowed with the power of giving expression to the supernatural and of rendering the divine present in our human world.” (‘Bruckner ist in der Geschichte der Europäischen Kunst eins der ganz seltenen Genies, denen es vergönnt ist, dem Übernatürlichen Ausdruck zu verleihen, und das Göttliche in unserer Menschenwelt gegenwärtig zu machen.’)  Chicago Chorale is not a religious organization, and, with the exception of our annual Advent Vespers presentations, does not prepare music to be performed as part of worship services; but much of the music we perform, by such composers as Bruckner, Bach, Palestrina, Rautavaara, Pärt, is understandable primarily within the context of the religious observances for which it was composed.

For choral singers and conductors, questions of “historically informed performance practice” inevitably lead to consideration of the circumstances in which music was intended to be performed—the visual and acoustic spaces, with their rehearsal and performance conditions; the expectations of the listeners; the age, sex, and training of the performers; but also the goal of the musical performance.  Very little great choral music is composed to be performed in concert halls, and to be greeted by applause or, even more, standing ovation.

Choral music, historically, functioned to strengthen the religious faith, understanding, and commitment of the listener.  Popular Christianity changed radically during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and so did choral music:  largely, it was replaced, relative to the day to day efforts of important composers, by operas and lieder in the vocal music realm, and instrumental music, especially large orchestral works (as instruments evolved into the miraculous, flexible machines we know today).   To my ears, most nineteenth century religious choral music—even by such great composers as Brahms—sounds dutiful and unconvinced; it seems to know its time has passed, that it has been eclipsed. Almost, it becomes sentimental, backward-looking; or, as in such mighty works as Verdi’s Requiem, theatrical, operatic, and secular.

Bruckner stands as a freak in the middle of this.  Though clearly influenced by the harmonic and procedural advances of Liszt and Wagner, he adapts them to his own purposes; even his symphonies have been called “masses without words,” so supernatural and other-worldly did they seem in their own time, and do they seem, today.  I don’t know that his upbringing was different from that of other young people of his time and station, making him more personally devout; somehow, though, the dawning discovery of his genius was not paralleled by a loss of commitment to his faith, a loss of belief.  The one became a complete, perfect mode of expression for the other; and whatever the circumstances of his life, his various quirks and neuroses, his religious vision shone pure and intact right through to the end of his life.  At least in his music, he prayed without ceasing.   As the preface to the most recent edition of his Mass in E minor states, “In retrospect, the E minor Mass, in its expressive modernity, towers like an isolated mountain peak far above the sacred vocal music of the nineteenth century.”

Half Simpleton, Half God

Gustav Mahler described Anton Bruckner as "half simpleton, half God."  Prior to this winter, Chorale has known Bruckner only through a handful of short, a cappella church motets, which are fairly conservative and accessible; now however, we are grappling with one of his major works, his Mass No. 2 in E minor, meeting the simpleton god head-on. Originally composed in 1866 (and revised thereafter; Chorale presents the 1882 version), the Mass stands as one of Bruckner’s “early mature” works; the quintessential late bloomer, Bruckner (1824-1896) did not hit his compositional stride until his late thirties, and composed the bulk of the work on which his fame rests, in his later years. He was primarily a symphonist, and those radical, enormous, groundbreaking works upon which his fame rests were products of the seventies, eighties, and nineties.  His group of three masses, composed 1864-1868, can be seen as precursors of these symphonies, familiar liturgical forms through which he explored the structural, melodic, and harmonic ideas which inform the later works.

Bruckner lived and thrived during a period in Western music history during which composers came increasingly to be regarded as demigods.  Beethoven, Liszt, Wagner—composers whose radical harmonic and structural ideas shaped music into the twentieth century-- enjoyed a degree of fame, even in their own lifetimes, which “serious” composers can only dream of today; and their egotism, self-promotion, disdain for their peers, manipulation of the public, are legendary.  Bruckner, though their worthy musical heir and peer, behaved, and presumably felt, much differently.  He came from a modest but respectable background:  his father and grandfather were both school teachers, and young Anton himself expected to take up the same profession. He demonstrated musical talent, but no one considered him a genius. His father died when he was only thirteen years old, and young Anton was sent to the Augustinian Monastery in St. Florian, where he sang in the choir and studied both organ and violin, before taking up teaching and organist positions.  He learned to be deeply pious, as well as deeply self-effacing and self-doubting, traits which remained with him throughout his life.   He composed some small pieces, but seems to have felt content, or at least settled, in his life as a school teacher.  He accepted poor treatment from his superiors, as though he deserved it.

Finally, however, some inner fire sprung him from his chosen life.  When he was thirty-one (pretty ancient, compared with the composers mentioned above), Bruckner finally began to study composition seriously, by mail, with a theorist at the Vienna Conservatory.  At this point, the Buckner we now celebrate began to find form and expression. He met Liszt, was introduced to the music of Wagner, and began to compose in his own, mature style—a style considered “wild and nonsensical” by many of his contemporaries, but which he doggedly pursued and perfected throughout the rest of his life and career.

Bruckner’s major works exist in several different versions.  Partly, he was dissatisfied, himself, and constantly sought to improve what he had composed; partly, he was urged by supporters to smooth out the “wild and nonsensical” qualities of which he was accused, to make the works more acceptable to the listening public and to the critics.  On the one hand, self-effacing Bruckner was eager to oblige and try to “improve” his works; on the other, he seems to have believed in the validity of his own genius, and to have held, fundamentally, to his own vision.  He did not destroy his original scores after he had revised them, but left them in his will to the Vienna National Library, confident of their musical validity^. During the later twentieth century a veritable cottage industry sprang to life, collecting, comparing, and editing his scores in a (vain) attempt to come up with definitive versions, a task which continues in our own day.

From Wikipedia:  Biographers generally characterize Bruckner as a "simple" provincial man, and many biographers have complained that there is huge discrepancy between Bruckner's life and his work. For example, Karl Grebe said: "his life doesn't tell anything about his work, and his work doesn't tell anything about his life, that's the uncomfortable fact any biography must start from." Numerous anecdotes abound as to Bruckner's dogged pursuit of his chosen craft and his humble acceptance of the fame that eventually came his way. Once, after a rehearsal of his Fourth Symphony in 1881, the well-meaning Bruckner tipped the conductor Hans Richter: "When the symphony was over," Richter related, "Bruckner came to me, his face beaming with enthusiasm and joy. I felt him press a coin into my hand. 'Take this' he said, 'and drink a glass of beer to my health.'" Richter, of course, accepted the coin, and wore it on his watch-chain ever after.

I have always been wild about Bruckner’s music; my enthusiasm has never waned, despite the difficulties I encounter with it. I have no doubt Chorale is going to love working on this Mass, and that our love and admiration will inform our performance of it.