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Robert Spano Conducts Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Chorus,
and Soloists to Three GRAMMY® Nominations
by Mark Satola
RELATED
Spano
and ASO Take Grammy Triple-Crown
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Excerpts from Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Chorus, and Soloists Christine Goerke
and Brett Polegato "A
Song for All Seas, All Ships" "On
the Beach at Night, Alone" These audio clips appear courtesy of Telarc
Records. |
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the Conservatory |
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Listening Room |
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 In
1907, English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, then 35 years old,
wrote to Frederick Delius at the older composer's home in Grez-sur-Loing,
France with what a he called "a very audacious request."
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I have had it in my mind (and especially that I have now heard your beautiful [piano] concerto) that I should profit very much by your advice and if you saw my work you might be able to suggest ways in which I could improve myself - either by going to Paris or not. Have you ever any time to spare - and if you have would you allow me to come and see you? I don't know if I ought to ask this on so slight an acquaintance.
Yours very truly,
R. Vaughan Williams
Delius must not have known what was in store for him when he agreed to meet the younger composer, who years later described the scene in his Musical Autobiography as one in which he "insisted on playing through the whole of my Sea Symphony to him. Poor fellow! How he must have hated it!"
That the accomplished and well-regarded composer should have found himself, at such a late stage, still unsure of himself tells us much about Vaughan Williams' struggle to find his authentic voice at a time when the terra cognita of the 19th century was being left behind for the restless explorations of the unknown regions of the 20th.
Oberlin Conservatory alumnus and faculty member Robert Spano '83 took a fresh look at A Sea Symphony, the composer's setting of poems by Walt Whitman and a pivotal score in his oeuvre, on a new recording with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, featuring soprano Christine Goerke and baritone Brett Polegato, on Telarc Records. A Sea Symphony has been honored with three GRAMMY® award nominations: Best Classical Album, Best Choral Performance, and Best Engineered Album, Classical. The GRAMMY Awards will be held Sunday, February 23, at Madison Square Garden in New York City and will air on the CBS Television network beginning at 8 p.m. (live in the East, tape delayed in the West).
This recording represents, surprisingly, the first time the ASO has performed the Vaughan Williams score, considered one of the cornerstones of the choral literature.
"My illustrious predecessor, Robert Shaw, was not fond of Vaughan Williams' music," Spano says. "He had no interest in him at all, in fact. The idea to perform this work came from a member of the chorus, who was actually speaking as a representative of a number of them. They had wanted to do it for years."
Produced by Thomas Moore, with assistance from Elaine Martone, and engineered by Michael Bishop, Telarc's new recording shows that Vaughan Williams' huge score and the ASO are a perfect fit. Spano's take on the work is lean, vigorous, and crisp, qualities that are well matched to the acoustical environment of the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta. The somewhat dry sound of the hall demands incredible precision from the chorus, which Spano draws from them, thanks to fine preparation by Director of Choruses, Norman MacKenzie; the added bonus is that Whitman's words are perhaps more clearly understood than in any of the work's previous recordings.
Especially fine on this new disc is the Scherzo, "The Waves," a devil of a difficult task for the chorus, which must fly through dangerous antiphonal shoals. Spano's tempi are quick but he keeps the chorus light and responsive, the better to skim across the flashing surface of the orchestra. When the music broadens out at the words "Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface," Spano lets the chorus have its head, without losing any of the tremendous momentum that has built up in the preceding pages.
Vaughan Williams saved his grandest and most profound musical ideas for the last movement, "The Explorers," which lasts nearly half an hour. Here he tied together the disparate metaphysical themes proposed in the first three movements, arranging Whitman's texts to depict spiritual exploration, expressed through the metaphor of sailing across unknown seas, as the next step in the evolution of man (an idea that must have appealed to Vaughan Williams, who was related to Charles Darwin).
Spano gives us a wonderful interpretation of this movement, ably synthesizing text and music. "It's hard to classify it," he says. "It's symphonic in scope, but at the same time it's like an oratorio or a cantata, and it's also operatic. The last movement contains some of Whitman's most beautiful writing.
"One of the joys of conducting
this big, sprawling work, apart from the challenge of managing the trajectory
in a piece of this length, is the experience of engaging in a long journey,
while keeping its integrity and pace," he continues. "I sense
a tremendous inspiration on Vaughan Williams' part - he's chosen some
of Whitman's most beautiful writing, and it grabs me as well."
