Opus Colorado

The Season Finale by the Lamont Symphony Orchestra, entitled “Adventures at Sea,” was not only a fitting end to their concert season, it was very well attended as it should have been. Because it was a mix of two orchestral works and one work for chorus and orchestra, it clearly defined the progress that the students have made, not only during the school year, but in their careers as students. The confidence that they demonstrate always changes greatly. And when one performs difficult works as they did on Thursday, May 31, that confidence was clearly noticeable in the way they responded to Maestro Golan and Maestra Sailer. You must understand that these students are so good, and they work so hard when they perform, that sometimes the smallest mistake can be noticeable, but please do not take that as any kind of harsh criticism. This orchestra is so much better than many of the university orchestras in the US that I have heard, let alone most of the community orchestras in the state, that very tiny errors become apparent. I wish some of the community orchestras in Colorado performed to the standard of the Lamont Symphony Orchestra. And the same applies to the Lamont Chorale, Lamont Women’s Chorus, and the Lamont Men’s Choir. These groups are delightful to listen to.

The Lamont Symphony Orchestra opened the program with the overture to The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner. As everyone must know by now, this is the story of a Dutch sea captain who is cursed to sail the earth forever, only coming ashore every seven years to see if he can find the unselfish love of a woman. At the very beginning of this overture, there are open fifths and a tremolo which clearly remind one of Beethoven whom Wagner admired as the ultimate composer. There is a constant juxtaposition of themes: the dramatic Dutchman theme, and a milder, gentler theme which suggests the Dutchman’s liberation and release.

I’ve always admired the tempos that Maestro Golan takes when he performs Wagner with this orchestra. They are always a little quicker than I anticipate, and certainly The Flying Dutchman was taken at a faster tempo than the recording I have of this work, which is done by the Budapest Symphony. I certainly did like Golan’s tempos better, because, in the opening, it gives the French horns more momentum, especially with their hard-driving two-note-phrase that is repeated so often. Against this insistent, almost terror driven theme, the violins have sweeping glissandos, which accurately describe the waves, and the bow wave of the red ghost ship becoming visible through the fog. I know that I have commented on this before, but it is amazing for me to watch these students working so hard on their instruments. None of them sits in his chair, and simply moves his bow arm. Of course, unlike community orchestras, the students are working for a grade, but, nonetheless, they always impress me with the sincerity of their effort. Even in the quieter moments of this overture, the LSO and Golan provided tension. I thought that it was an absolutely marvelous performance, particularly when you consider all of the technical difficulties inherent in this work. It was exciting and it was driven.

After the Wagner, the LSO continued its seafaring theme with a work by American composer, Peter Boyer, entitled Titanic. I will quote very briefly from his website:

“Boyer was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1970, and began composing at the age of 15. His first major composition was a large-scale Requiem Mass in memory of his grandmother, composed while only a teenager. He was named to the first All-USA College Academic Team, comprised of “the 20 best and brightest college students in the nation,” by USA TODAY in 1990. Boyer received his Bachelor’s degree from Rhode Island College, which awarded him an honorary Doctor of Music degree in 2004. He received Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from The Hartt School of the University of Hartford, which named him its 2002 Alumnus of the Year. There his teachers included Larry Alan Smith and Harold Farberman. Following his doctoral work, Boyer studied privately with John Corigliano in New York, then moved to Los Angeles to study film and TV scoring at the USC Thornton School of Music, where his teachers included the late Elmer Bernstein. In 1996, Boyer was appointed to the faculty at Claremont Graduate University, where he holds the Helen M. Smith Chair in Music and the rank of Full Professor.”

Peter Boyer is an excellent composer who has a marvelous understanding of orchestration. His ability to orchestrate was certainly demonstrated in Titanic, where he so skillfully uses the strings to create the tension of impending doom. He uses cascading glissandi, which almost seem to be “stacked” on top of each other so that the sound created is almost microtonal. To that, he adds gongs and bells, that truly sound like the voices of fate. As he points out in the program notes, it has been recorded by Titanic survivors that there were at least two pieces performed by the ships orchestra: Alexander’s Ragtime Band, and the hymn, Nearer, my God, to Thee. Hearing these two popular pieces in the middle of the tension really does give the piece a sense of humanness, a startling contrast to the mood that has been set before.

Of his work, Peter Boyer states (and I quote from the program notes):

“The final section of this work contains the most complex music I have ever written, and it was inspired by a specific moment, the ship’s very last. Just before the liner broke in two, so much water had flooded its bow that the steel behemoth literally stood upright in the water, its stern fully elevated a few hundred feet above the water’s surface. (This is recreated with frightening accuracy in James Cameron’s film.) At this moment, all the contents of the ship—from enormous boilers to grand pianos, furniture, china, passengers, luggage—came crashing down atop one another, and for one brief moment, things which were never meant to occupy the same place did just that. This inspired me to attempt the same phenomenon musically, and so all of the musical themes of the work, both original and ‘borrowed,’ return simultaneously in their original keys and tempos, like ‘ghosts’ crashing into one another. One by one, these ‘ghosts’ fade, engulfed by the ‘sea music,’ until it alone remains eternal. An offstage trumpet plays the hymn a final time, like a spectral benediction, and the sea fades to silence.

“The score’s dedication reads: ‘In memory of the 1,517 lives lost in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912.’”

I have not seen the score to this work, but Maestro Golan and the Lamont Symphony Orchestra seemed to play the glissandi with almost scratching noises of the bows on the strings. Mind you, I’m not sure that’s what they did; perhaps I was hearing overtones caused by all of the “stacked” glissandi. But it would be interesting to see if Boyer indicated some kind of special effect aside from just the straight sound of the violins. Wherever that sound came from, it was marvelously effective, for it not only created tension, but it conveyed the sensation of very cold water. It also conveyed a great feeling of tragedy, particularly, when, in the background, Irving Berlin’s famous tune was played. It was interesting to watch the orchestra members, because as the piece progressed, their demeanor seemed to change and become more serious. Clearly, they were being moved by the emotion of the music, and it was very definitely conveyed to the audience. I point out, that this is one of the irreplaceable facets of musical education that these students are learning through Maestro Golan and their other professors: how to convey and portray what the composer wishes. And, learning how to respond precisely to what a conductor wishes. That is one reason this orchestra is so excellent.

I was truly stunned by this work: not only its quality, but the quality of the performance. I know that the orchestra reached the audience in every way possible, because they were extremely attentive, and there was no movement in their seats whatsoever.

Following the intermission, the Lamont Symphony Orchestra was joined onstage by the Lamont Chorale, the Lamont Women’s Chorus, and the Lamont Men’s Chorus, in a performance of Ralph Vaughn Williams’ enormous work, A Sea Symphony. This is a striking work, not only because of its innate beauty, but because it was Vaughn Williams’ first attempt at writing a symphony, and he chose to write this symphony with a large choir in every movement. Throughout his life he was motivated by the poetry of the American, Walt Whitman. In this instance, Vaughn Williams, who was a declared agnostic, used Whitman’s decidedly non-ecclesiastical concept of life’s journey as a sea voyage through all of the uncharted corners of the earth. In the first movement, A Song for All Seas, All Ships, Vaughn Williams outlines the themes which will be used throughout the entire work.

The combined choirs sat behind the orchestra, which is the normal position, but they were so far back from the audience that I was initially a little apprehensive about the projection of their sound. But I must say that that length, plus the closeness of the walls, projected the sound forward almost like it was coming out of the broad end of a funnel to the audience. The sound was fantastic, and, I must say, so was the diction. This work was conducted by Maestra Catherine Sailer, and she is a profound musician, as well as a very good choral conductor. She certainly knows how to coach a choir in diction, and how to get them to use small, but forceful breaths, in order to accent the syllables in the text. That same skill is certainly shared with Maestro Paul Smith who’s Lamont Men’s Choir. I can easily assure you that the words the choir was singing could be understood at least ninety-five percent of the time, and that is excellent, when you consider the size of the choir and the size of the orchestra. The balance between the two was also excellent.

I must say, that I have never seen Maestra Sailer be so emphatic and commanding in her conducting as she was in A Sea Symphony. I left the performance wondering how many times she has conducted this work, for she seemed totally familiar with it, and extremely comfortable and precise in her cues to the orchestra and the soloists (how much of this score did she memorize?). The orchestra followed her every indication, and, as is her customary technique, she used huge sweeping motions to pull the orchestra and the chorus along. She cued the soloists with casual glances in their direction, and it was very effective. Keep in mind, that I am not a conductor, but I was so impressed with her ability to get so many different emotions from not just the orchestra, but from the choir as well, even when one group was anticipating emotions for the other group. The orchestra never covered the choir, nor did the choir ever cover the orchestra, no matter what the dynamic level.

This work is written for soprano and baritone solos. The soprano was Michelle Mendoza, and I have written about her before. She has an absolutely enormous voice that is full of power and emotion. Her voice has a certain transparent quality, which is well-suited for the Vaughn Williams, because it lends a certain innocence to the work. But, I must say, that I was a little disappointed in her diction Thursday evening. It was a difficult sometimes to understand the words that she was singing. This is an unusual criticism because, when I have heard her before this performance, her diction has been excellent. The baritone was Benjamin Wood. He, too, has a huge voice with a quality very close to a heldentenor (heroic tenor). It is the exact quality of voice that Wagner calls for in his operas. Mr. Wood’s diction was well-nigh perfect. So was his phrasing and breath control.

It is always enjoyable hearing the Lamont Symphony, and all of the Lamont choirs, whether they are combined or performing separately. They are so consistent, which, of course, means that as music students, their learning processes are consistent. They are being taught excellence and how to achieve it, which is what they will need if they are to be performers.