by Janos Gereben
EUGENE -- As the country's top cowboys are converging for a really big Fourth of July rodeo here, another gathering took place, including the Suwon Civic Chorale of South Korea, Stuttgart's maestro Helmut Rilling and soprano Sibylla Rubens, and from Hannover, bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff.
Tonight, these exotic forces (minus the cowboys) combined for one of the most grounded, all-of-one-piece and sublime Brahms German Requiem performances in my memory.
The Oregon Bach Festival has done it again. Just like its older (and smaller) counterpart in Carmel, this festival is producing great music in an incongruous setting. Amidst the cowboys and blueberry patches, between a rugged coastline and beautiful mountains, plaid shirts and lots of utility vehicles, somehow Brahms got his due and then some. The standing ovation went on for 10 minutes, every second of it well deserved.
Cavernous, all-wood Silva Concert Hall of the Hult Center packed in some 2,500 people for the concert, part of of two-week celebration of Bach and the Romantics. Already gone: the missa Solemnis; coming up: the St. Matthew Passion, Schubert's Rosamunde, the Magnificat, and -- so far from December -- the Handel Messiah.
Those are the biggies. Otherwise, it's lots of chamber and choral music, art exhibits, and a Fourth of July softball game at the University of Oregon: orchestra vs. chorus. With the South Koreans making up the bulk of the chorus this year, the orchestra doesn't have a chance.
But tonight, the German-American orchestra and the Korean-Oregonian chorus got along famously under Rilling's most impressive direction. The Requiem took off slowly and cautiously, then it built and built, steadily, comprehensively, magnificently, sweeping the audience along the deeply spiritual flow of this most un-religious and non-death-oriented of requiems.
This was not a powerful German Requiem, but a masterfully shaped, moving experience.
Rilling is an outstanding, rare conductor, equally good with chorus and orchestra -- that's something that just doesn't happen often. Most choral conductors are fair-to-middling with an orchestra and vice verse. Rilling integrates his forces easily, obviously, irresistibly. He does not dance, does not conduct with his hands, but his arms and elbows. His attention is completely on the music and the musicians; I can't think of another major conductor who is less of a showman (Herbert Blomstedt comes close). But the results: now there is a really big show.
The opening Selig sind, die da Leid tragen and closing Selig sind die Toten served as repetition, reinforcement and yet as question-and-answer -- they enfolded everything in-between.
The Korean approach to the German Romantic masterpiece to sing quietly, accurately and together. It doesn't sound right, but it works. With just a little overstatement, this is a chorus that has no great voices but they all sing very well.
No such considerations for the two soloists. They would be difficult to match in any concert hall. Rubens is a soprano with a clear, smallish voice, perfect musical delivery; a German edition of Heidi Grant Murphy.
Quasthoff, for whom I drove the 1,000-mile roundtrip from San Francisco, is not yet as well known as the others, but he is a valid member of the amazing bass-baritone class of the 'Nineties: Terfel, Hampson, Hvorostovky.
Quasthoff's Herr, lehre doch mich impressed not only with a big, perfectly placed, warm and beautiful voice, but with a clearly, obviously brilliant understanding and communication of the text and music. Listening to Quasthoff is thrilling because you just know that you're in the presence of a perfect interpretation. His projection, the effortless shaping of notes and phrases, his direct, unaffected communication already rank with the great ones -- and he is still under 40 in a voice category which can easily give him another two decades of peak performance.
Paul Moor, one of Quasthoff's most forceful and effective champions, wrote with appreciation about European reviews that simply ignored the singer's appearance. Once he becomes well-known, that may be the right thing to do. But for now, as a journalist, I don't see the viability of ignoring what is making such a powerful impact on Quasthoff's audiences.
Severely deformed as one of the thalidomide babies of the 'Sixties, the singer is about four feet tall, with a normal (and handsome) face and torso, but only fragmentary arms and legs. Quasthoff sings from a three-foot high platform, so that he actually he stands above everybody else. I don't know the reason for this, but I found the strange staging even more distracting than the initial impact of Quasthoff's appearance.
Still, just as with Itzhak Perlman, Jeffrey Tate, and other artists with disabilities, Quasthoff's artistry renders every other consideration moot in just a few minutes -- even the thought of what enormous challenges he had to face (physical, social, psychological) to be where he is today. What's important is that he singing for us, so wonderfully well. Herr, lehre doch mich, the aria he sings in the German Requiem ends with: no torment shall touch... the souls of the righteous. When you hear and see Quasthoff, you know that is one of the righteous.
Oakland Post - July, 1997