The Seattle Symphony Chorale Years

This post is about working with the Chorale, and in so many ways this was just a fabulous experience—so many wonderful singers in the Chorale (which had been led for 13 years by Robert Scandrett—who also led the fantastic choral study tour of England I’d gone on in 1975). It was also great to work with the SSO, just a terrific group of musicians—I learned a lot observing them, listening to them, and working with some of them over the next four years, along with Gerard Schwarz and some excellent guest conductors. This was the peak of their period when they recorded so much music for Delos (now almost all on Naxos) and I learned a tremendous amount from the recording sessions we did.

The first year was, as you can see, crazy busy! This was for an all-volunteer chorus with one regular rehearsal a week and there was little time to get everything ready, particularly since four works were to be recorded. Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius is not an easy sing and I think I had one singer who’d sung it before (and I hadn’t sung or prepped it either). A great work, however!

And what you don’t see is that somewhere in September, they also recorded Ravel’s complete Daphnis & Chloé (not prepared by me because Gerard Schwarz (AD of the SSO) had previously asked another of the conductors (whom he knew) to prepare it. I did sit in on the recording sessions because I wanted to learn about the process. This was still in the old Seattle Opera House and John Eargle, an amazing and well-known recording engineer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Eargle) was in charge of the recording. The orchestra was onstage the regular big shell (at that time the Opera House was shared by the Symphony, Opera, AND Ballet), and he put the choir (to get better sound separation) in the audience seats. This was interesting (and created a great sound) but was complicated in other ways. Someone made the decision (for financial reasons, I’m sure) to wait until the very end of the session to record the big a cappella section—uh oh! The choir, having been there the entire time, started the a cappella section after the orchestra had left and were quite tired—consequently they kept going flat. It simply wasn’t going to fix itself. So Adam Stern, who was going to edit the CD, came on stage with an upright piano they rolled on), gave them pitches and they literally recorded it phrase by phrase, then starting each new section with a fresh pitch. It worked (although Adam told me later that he had a huge amount of editing and some pitch correcting to do). This was NOT the fault of the Chorale or their preparer, but of not understanding how voices work and the difficulty of singing in tune when really tired.

The schedule and repertoire below was set long before the season began, so I inherited it. I’d only conducted the Bach and Messiah, all others were new score preps for me and I had barely gotten back from Sweden (where I'd been doing research all summer for my dissertation) before the Chorale retreat and rehearsals began: the Busoni—which uses a male chorus—is an odd piece, to say the least and hard to rehearse; the Elgar rarely done in the US (although a great piece); the Hanson rarely done (Schwarz was a big proponent of American composers and the orchestra did and recorded a lot of this rep), plus being recorded (it was Grammy nominated); the Sheng had been been done once; the Piston (for all music students—yes! the theory textbook you all loved) was hardly ever done; Acis & Galatea is great, as was the Mendelssohn, and the Schubert was prepared by me, but I wasn’t around for the recording session.

The Bach, both Handel works, Bright Sheng and Piston were all done with reduced chorus. This was tricky since I didn’t know the voices well. Given the prior season (the audition year, with 8 or so different conductors) was a tough one, and Jerry didn’t want me to audition the choir. So I set up a very brief way to hear singers. Taking smaller choruses from a bigger choir is always difficult—feelings can be hurt and it makes planning rehearsals very difficult. Because we were doing so much, we couldn’t give over a full rehearsal (except a few times) for just, let’s say, the Bach, or Sheng, etc., but had to have the full chorus for a time, then let singers go early and rehearse the smaller chorus.

The Sheng was very challenging, in Chinese, and very confusingly notated. Ross Patterson, a member of the choir and composer, re-did the notation (Bright didn’t mind and took a copy of Ross's score) and helped it go much more quickly. Particularly for the period at the first of the year, when we prepared, performed, and recorded the Elgar, Hanson, Sheng, Piston, Handel, and Mendelssohn, it was a huge challenge. Those choir members that sang in all of those programs had T-shirts made listing the works and saying something like, “We survived . . . .“

It was quite the introduction to the Chorale! Cindy Melson Harris was Choir President that year and I would NOT have survived without her! Those programs which were recorded for Delos have an asterisk and conductors are listed parenthetically.

1990-91:

 September—Bach Wachet Auf (Schwarz)

 October—Debussy Nocturnes (Maximiano Valdes)

 December—Busoni Piano Concerto (Schwarz)

 Handel Messiah (Christopher Kendall)

 February—Elgar Dream of Gerontius (Schwarz)

 Hanson—Lament for Beowulf (Schwarz)*

 March—Bright Sheng Two Folksongs from Chinghai

 Piston Psalm and Prayer of David (Schwarz)*

 Handel Acis and Galatea (Schwarz)*

 April—Mendelssohn Lobgesang (Schwarz)*

 May—Schubert Rosamunde (Schwarz)

The next season was (comparatively) a snap! The Handel Suite done with the Ballet was something they’d done several times, so it came together quickly. We were obviously preparing the Walton in the fall as well—another great piece and quite a sing. This year there was a huge gap between the Walton and the season-ending concert for us in May. So (in addition to the Chorale’s own Christmas concert—no time for it last year—which I conducted), I planned a Lenten program which we did at St. Mark’s Cathedral. Not an easy program! I split the Chorale into a 50-voice choir for the Poulenc motets, the rest singing some of my favorite Bruckner motets—the Ecce sacerdos with the Flentrop organ and 3 trombones. Then the full choir did the Penderecki Agnus Dei. The second half was the Bruckner Mass in e minor, a wonderful work for choir and winds/brass—this was spectacular since we had the principal players of the SSO, a joy to work with!

1991-92:

 September—Mahler Third Symphony (Schwarz)

 October—Danielpour Journey without Distance (Schwarz)*

 November—Handel Suite Pacific Northwest Ballet (Kershaw)

 December—Handel Messiah (Schwarz)

 Symphony Chorale Christmas Concert (Sparks)

 January—Walton Belshazzar's Feast (Schwarz)

 April—Chorale Lenten Concert (Sparks):

 Bruckner Ecce Sacerdos (ca. 100 singers)

    Os justi

 Poulenc Lenten Motets (ca. 50 singers)

 Penderecki Agnus Dei (full Chorale)

 Bruckner Mass in E Minor (full Chorale)

 May—Beethoven Symphony no. 9 and

 Hanson Symphony no. 7 - Sea Symphony (Schwarz)*

The following season was more with the orchestra: opening with Carmina Burana with the wonderful conductor, Donald Runnicles, then principal conductor at the San Francisco Opera. December got interesting with both Messiah and Judas Maccabaeus (two smaller choirs again), plus our own concert: a busy fall!

The spring had a number of shorter pieces, they’d done the Holst fairly recently, so I added the Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil (oh, that little thing!). We started working on it at the retreat and spent a bit of time whenever we could. This was the first performance of that work in Seattle, also sung at St. Mark’s. A labor of love for everyone in the Chorale, I think!

1992-93:

 November—Orff Carmina Burana (Donald Runnicles)

 December—Handel Messiah (Schwarz)

 Handel Judas Maccabaeus (Schwarz)

 Symphony Chorale Christmas Concert (Sparks)

 January—Holst Planets (Schwarz)

 February—Faure Requiem and

 Bright Sheng Suite from 'Song of Majnun' (premiere - Schwarz)

 March—Bloch America (Schwarz)*

 May—Debussy Nocturnes (Schwarz)

 May—Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil (sung complete in Slavonic, Sparks)

 June—Copland Canticle of Freedom (only for recording, Schwarz)*

The last season demonstrated some of my frustrations in working in a large organization where I had limited power to control what would allow us to be at our best, however. Trying to convince Jerry and the management on what works (and doesn't!) for a volunteer chorus that rehearses once a week, making everyone understand that they aren’t like the orchestra which is terrifically trained and plays professionally full-time . . . and that the chorus can’t pull together difficult music well in just a few rehearsals (many commiserations with Susan Petella, Chorale mangager, about these issues).

I thought things had gotten better, but I was surprised to see the season schedule (I only saw it when it was released to the press!) and see what was in store!

The fall was fine, but when you look at January, February, March, and April: successively Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem, recording David Diamond’s This Sacred Ground, Beethoven 9, the Strauss Taillefaire, and Beethoven Missa Solemnis. This meant rehearsing (particularly) the Brahms and the Missa Solemnis in chunks throughout the fall, whenever I could fit it in. As most choral conductors know, it’s challenging to work on multiple big works at once (and in the midst of others)—it’s very much two steps ahead and one step back, since what was learned the last time is partially lost in the intervening week or weeks. Since the Brahms was in the third week of January, it essentially had to be very close to ready when we started rehearsals. John Nelson was great (and demanding) to work with—he wanted (and used) two piano rehearsal with the choir. He also sent me his personal conducting score in advance so I had all his markings (quite unusual, as anyone who's conducted a symphonic chorus knows)!

But the Missa Solemnis is something else—not done by this choir for quite a number of years. And, without asking about it, Schwarz put the Strauss Taillefaire on the same program (he mentioned it to me at some point, but never that it would be on the same program as the Missa!). The Strauss is an early work with a HUGE orchestra—they got permission from the union to add a fair number of players from the Seattle Youth Symphony to join us for that (and, without asking my advice, another college choir to join us for the Strauss as well). Now, there are several difficulties with this: first the Missa is one of the most difficult choral/orchestral works in the repertoire (not easy for the orchestra either); the Strauss is not so difficult to learn (not easy, either), but has lots of sustained high Bbs in the soprano and tenor parts, not exactly what what you want those singers to do when you have to come back after intermission and sing the Missa; AND, with the four standard rehearsals for orchestra, that meant one and a half for Strauss and two and a half for Beethoven. As you might imagine, neither the choir, orchestra, nor soloists were at their best. A frustrating experience, to be sure, when first preparing a work such as the Missa Solemnis.

Incidentally, the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra's conductor had been fired at the end of the previous season. The orchestra had to fill in for all their concerts and the Symphony Chorale was hired out to sing Carmina Burana with them. I asked to conduct that program, to which I added the Borodin Second Symphony, and they accepted. So I was doing all the Youth Symphony rehearsals in addition to everything else, including my PLU teaching and conducting schedule and the first Choral Arts NW concert, conducted by Eric Ericson. And (not surprisingly) I got walking pneumonia that Spring!

I had decided earlier that this was going to be my last year, given the frustrations in dealing with decisions made and advice ignored by the SSO management and Jerry. I talked to Jerry and the Artistic Manager sometime before the Carmina, and Jerry wanted me to hold off and rethink it, but I needed to tell the Chorale members at the last piano rehearsal we had—otherwise I could not do it in person, and I just wasn't willing to tell them via an email. He wasn’t happy about that, but I felt it was the only way I could do it.

1993-94:

 October—Orff Carmina Burana with Pacific Northwest Ballet (Stewart Kershaw)

 December—Handel Messiah (Gerard Schwarz)

 Symphony Chorale Christmas Concert (Sparks)

 January—Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem (John Nelson)

 February—Diamond This Sacred Ground (Schwarz)*

 March—Beethoven Symphony no. 9 (George Cleve)

 April—Strauss Taillefaire and

 Beethoven Missa Solemnis (Schwarz)

 May—Orff Carmina Burana with Seattle Youth Symphony (Sparks)

I don’t want to end this on a negative, note, however—I absolutely treasure those four years and the great people I worked with (many of whom are still friends). I had experience with repertoire I never would have prepared otherwise, I worked with and got to know terrific musicians in the orchestra and saw, heard, and learned from a very high level of work. The players were a joy to work with. And there were lots of extra fun things: watching James Earl Jones narrate the Copland Portrait of Freedom; chatting briefly with Werner Klemperer out in the hall during a rehearsal when he was narrating another piece; meeting David Diamond; meeting and working with some terrific soloists, among them Vinson Cole, who sang in Gerontius and a couple other works.

And then there was Carmina Burana with the PNW Ballet! This was newly choreographed by Kent Stowell, co-AD of the ballet company with his wife, Francia (both having worked with Balanchine at NY City Ballet). The choreography and sets really were marvelous (a huge wheel of fortune that was flown in at the beginning and end and rotated). The “roasted swan” tenor was carried in by dancers as if on the spit, and a female dancer writhing between the legs of Erich Parce , the baritone soloist.

But the real "fun" for the chorus came in how they stood: suspended above the stage dressed in monk’s cowls. There were 80 singers, and Boeing engineers were involved in designing the platforms (out of the same materials as aircraft wings), which were suspended on cables (the dancers could make entrances underneath the chorus). This meant that the risers could sway, so singers were told, do NOT volunteer as a possible singer if you’re nervous about heights or will freak out if your platform moves! We also got the word that the engineers wanted to know the precise weight of the entire choir so they could over-engineer it for load. So I told singers that they had to put their REAL weight down (on a sheet that only I and one other person would see)—that the this was NOT the time to cheat!

The platforms (I think four rows of 20) were loaded from each side simultaneously so they would be gradually loaded equally, using the old style portable stairs that we used to use to walk on airplanes (well, for those of you of a certain age!).

Kent also some how made a mistake in one section and choreographed a few bars extra, so where it the music goes, “quo pereo, quo pereo, quo pereo,” the dancers were still dancing. So we simply sang and played it twice (there wasn't enough time to change the choreography)! I’m sure it got changed for the next season. A number of choirs have done it since, but it was great to have been in on its creation!

And on the first night I got to stand backstage with the stage manager, who calls cues, the next scene, etc. A fascinating backstage look at the dance world! On this first performance, some dancers coming off-stage cursing about something that had gone wrong, and the pure pressure of being in the right place at the right time, for the first time with a totally new ballet. And then it was wonderful to sit in the audience for some other performances and just enjoy how beautiful it all was.

So, four crazy, wonderful, never-to-be forgotten years with the SSO Chorale—something I’ll always be grateful was a part of my musical (and personal) life!