NCCO and Bach/baroque music - Jesu, meine Freude

I was able to attend the NCCO (National Collegiate Choral Organization) conference in Colorado Springs in early November.

It was a marvelous conference with both excellent concerts/choirs and sessions.

Paul Carey has posted beautifully on content of the sessions on his Musical Mayhem blog, so I won't attempt to do that.

Helmuth Rilling was the headliner, working with James Kim's excellent CSU Chamber Choir. Everyone knows Rilling's work, of course, from his Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart and his work since 1970 with the Oregon Bach Festival.

Certainly, his work had a big impact on me. As an undergraduate I was tremendously interested in baroque music and got to know his recordings and those of Wilhelm Ehmann, among others. In 1971 the University of Washington Chorale, under the direction of Rod Eichenberger, took part in one of the Vienna Symposiums organized by Paul Koutney. This meant two weeks in Vienna, each of the seven American university choirs doing a concert in a different church, plus combining for performances of the Kodaly Psalmus Hungaricus in the Rathaus and Mahler's Symphony #8 in the Konzertverein (quite a fabulous experience, with the Vienna Boychoir). Afterwards, the choir toured, ending up in Paris. I stayed over after that, among other things going to Ehmann's Westfälische Landeskirchenmusikschule (unannounced, I should add, as were all the things I did on that trip--more about that in another post!).

When I was in Herford, I mentioned to one of the German students that I'd really like to see Rilling work . . . and they said, well, we'll call him and find out what he's doing! So I found out that he was doing a Kantat-Fest at the Gedächtniskirche the following weekend, then the weekend after rehearsing with the Gächinger Kantorei for the first time on some repertoire for a concert about a week after that. So, off to Stuttgart I went.

The first weekend I watched rehearsals on Saturday for the Kantat-Fest, which simply meant that anyone who wanted showed up on Saturday to rehearse a Bach cantata (about 100 people) and they would then sing it in the service the next day. I didn't stick around for the service, as I'd already arranged to visit two friends from the choir, Greg and Nancy Vancil, who would be studying at the Mozarteum in Salzburg for the next year, but enjoyed watching the rehearsal. I then came back to Stuttgart for the rehearsals with the Gächinger Kantorei the following weekend. The Choir was doing an unusual program for Rilling as I knew his work, all a cappella: Debussy and Ravel Trois Chansons, Schoenberg Friede auf Erden, Schumann Talismane, and Genzmer Südamerikanische Gesänge, if I remember correctly. Great fun!

The next summer, 1972, I  attended the Oregon Bach Festival, which was truly a mountain-top experience for me in many ways. We sang an all-Schütz program (big Schütz year) and Bach's Mass in B Minor. The Bach, in particular, was life-changing in many ways. By that point, I'd already conducted Christ lag in Todesbanden, and was about to start doing a project inspired by the Kantat-Fest weekends. But it was Rilling's knowledge, expertise, and passion which truly inspired. At that time, he told us it was the 50th time he'd conducted the Mass--one can hardly imagine how many times it's been now! The style was fairly romantic, compared to what he or we would do now (although not at the time). It's also been interesting to see how his style has changed: the phrasing in the opening Kyrie fugue, for example. While I never went back to the OBF as a participant, I've occasionally gone to hear a few concerts and, in fact, heard the Mass when the Gächinger Kantorei came to the OBF for their 50th anniversary. Fascinating to hear how the concept has changed, and what has remained not too far from what I remember way back when.

(I should also say that I was able to catch Rilling sitting outside of the hotel one afternoon and thank him for the inspiration he's provided and mention that long-ago couple of weekends in Stuttgart, as well as the early OBF experience--it's always nice to be able to do that!)

Since I've done lots of work with period instruments (it's one of the reasons the job at UNT was intriguing to me, and certainly one of the reasons I got the job)--the Bach Ensemble in Seattle from 1978-80 began using period instruments--my ideas about performance have changed as well.

With that in mind, it was interesting to listen to the concert at the NCCO, which had two motets (Singet dem Herrn and Jesu, meine Freude) plus the Magnificat. I found that there were two things that struck me most strongly: some aspects of phrasing and the tuning of major thirds. As I mentioned, Rilling has certainly changed many things about the way he phrases baroque music (with the example of the Kyrie in the B Minor), but there are other aspects where my way of phrasing has changed.

In addition, I've gotten so used to different tuning systems that my ear now wants a considerably lower/pure major third, particularly at cadences. For me, the thirds I heard in Colorado were far too "jangly," the only way I can describe the difference between the "beats" of a tempered third and the beatless relative calm of a pure third (the purity refers to a major third which matches the third heard in the natural harmonic series.

Since I'd just done Jesu, meine Freude with my Collegium Singers at UNT, that was very fresh in my mind. Given what I've said, it's only fair that I provide a link to what we did, not that I'm claiming anything for it, but it represents in a more concrete way what can only be expressed poorly in writing. You can find that performance here: the Bach begins at 1:04 (that's one hour, four minutes). You'll know it's live, not only because it's on video with no possibility of editing, but also because our organist (the fabulous Christoph Hammer) played a decidedly non-picardy third at the end of one of the movements! We were using Vallotti for tuning the organ, a decent compromise for this program, which was mostly mid-baroque from northern Germany (Buxtehude, particularly). For other repertoire (Monteverdi Vespers, for example) we've used quarter-comma meantone, which has extremely pure thirds (in some keys!).

We'll shortly have a video up with a performance of the Vivaldi Gloria with this choir and our period instrument baroque orchestra and I'll post a link when it's up. Strangely, I'd never conducted the Vivaldi before (perhaps because I'd heard so many terrible performances!), so it was great fun to approach in as fresh a manner as I could. More about that later.

Bach Johannespassion with Pro Coro

I'm in the middle of final rehearsals (final choral rehearsal last night; this afternoon continuo, Evangelist and Pilate; tonight full orchestra with arias and some work on the choruses) for the Bach St. John Passion. Tomorrow afternoon: arias with a few instruments; tomorrow evening, chorus and orchestra; Thursday morning: recits with Evangelist and Jesus; Thursday night dress; Friday evening performance at 7:30.

This is my last concert as Pro Coro's Artistic Director, a position I've held (and enjoyed) for twelve seasons. I first guest conducted, filling in for Gustav Sjökvist, in 1996. I was then approached in early 1998 about being a candidate for the vacant AD post. I agreed to become a candidate and conducted an audition concert in the Fall of 1998, then began my tenure in Fall 1999.

When I decided to take the position I now hold at the University of North Texas, it was clear to me that I couldn't devote the time necessary to do the job with Pro Coro. When I interviewed for PC long ago, I told the committee that if I took it on, it wouldn't be a "gig," that I always planned and thought long-term in such a job. And I do feel proud that I've always looked at my work with Pro Coro that way. I've always tried to think of what would build the choir and organization to be the best it could be--of course, it's for others to judge how successful I was.

This coming performance is one that gives me great joy. I love doing extended works such as this, music that calls for shaping large forms and pacing a great story into a cohesive and dramatic performance. And Bach's works have always been one of my loves--early in my career I founded a group in Seattle called the Bach Ensemble specifically to perform Bach cantatas, and I've conducted over 50 of them, plus all the big works, most of them multiple times.

I also get to work with this wonderful choir, with a number of players I've worked with regularly here in Edmonton, in an absolutely great hall. Soloists include Derek Chester, who's a new friend and colleague from Texas, as the Evangelist; Paul Grindlay, a wonderful musician whom I've worked with numerous times since coming to Edmonton, as Jesus; and soloists for the arias who'll also come from and sing in the chorus: Abra Whitney singing the alto solos, Michael Kurschat the bass solos, and Jordan Van Biert the role of Pilate. Jolaine Kerley and Tim Shantz both sang with the choir regularly in my early years and as soloists in more recent years--both did DMA work at IU. Jolaine has built a  career as singer, voice teacher, and conductor (the solo roles in both of Allan Bevan's two great oratorios which we premiered were written for her); and Tim is a wonderful conductor and superb singer as well. It's my special pleasure that they both agreed to sing for this concert, and as the other soloists, sing in both arias and choruses.

I look forward to the next couple days of rehearsals and the performance. I don't look forward to ending my regular association with the many wonderful people and musicians of Edmonton (and our favorite restaurant, Bistro Praha)! But it simply must be done. I know I'll be back to visit and hopefully occasionally conduct or do a workshop, but I'll miss this part of my life incredibly.

More after the performance (I'm sure including some photos taken by my wife) and news about Pro Coro's future.