This performance of Brahms: Schicksalslied – hr-Sinfonieorchester – WDR Rundfunkchor – Orozco-Estrada features one of the Radio Orchestras and one of the Radio Choruses.
More performance details:
hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony) ∙ WDR Rundfunkchor ∙ Michael Alber, Einstudierung/Chorus Director ∙ Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Dirigent ∙ hr-Sinfoniekonzert ∙ Alte Oper Frankfurt, 9. Dezember 2022 ∙
Hola a todos. We performed this piece (Brahms’s Schicksalslied) when I was in the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. I remember enjoying the first part of the piece, but wasn’t all that hot on the second part of it. It’s as if Johannes wrote two different pieces and said, “I think I’ll stick these two together and make them one piece.” The mood of most of the second part is drastically different than the mood of the first part. I feel a bit differently about the piece now, but I still think he should have stuck with the mood of the first part. I think this is the piece that some people say that if they don’t have the time to listen to Brahms’s EDR (Ein deutsches Requiem), that they listen to this. They think of this piece as a smaller EDR.
As I guess you read above, this performance is by the hr-S of Frankfurt (Frankfurt Radio Symphony) and the WDR Rundfunkchor from Cologne. They are both two of my favourite ensembles. The hr-Sinfonieorchester has a gorgeous string section but I think they are especially known for their wind section. And this Chorus is one of the finest I’ve heard. They are trained in choral excellence having been prepared by Michael Alber. He’s superb. He does his job unlike some of the Chorus Directors I can think of in the US. The hr-S don’t have their own Orchestra Chorus, by choice, so they invite one of the Orchestra Choruses connected with one of the other Deutsch orchestras when they perform a symphonic choral work. This Chorus is the same Chorus that I featured when they performed Brahms’s EDR which you can watch here.
I’ve noticed this many times with Andrés and that is he is excellent in working with a Chorus as you’ll see in this performance (above). And can I assume that he — as conductor — chose this Chorus from Cologne to perform with the hr-S? Or was it orchestral management that chose them, or both? He has an ear for choral excellence. Not all conductors do. I played a bit of this performance for my choral friend and he said about the Chorus, “Not a wobble or flutter in the bunch!” Nope. Like myself, my friend can’t stand Choruses that don’t sing with SATB perfect intonation. I said: As I’ve said before, these days I think Deutschland has the finest Orchestra Choruses that one will find anywhere. This Chorus has a very warm sound. They know perfect intonation and choral excellence. Which makes me ask yet again: So why can’t the Choruses in the US — the ones that come to mind — sound like this? What’s wrong with them that they can’t sound like this Chorus or the other Choruses I feature in the Conservatory? Such as in (what I call) “Wobbling and Fluttering Vibrato Boston” and the mixed Choruses at New England Conservatory and Boston University’s School of Music, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC) and others. Well, in part, it’s because the Chorus Director — with the exception of the TFC’s excellent James Burton — is not doing his or her job at those places because it does indeed take work, work, work to achieve the level of choral excellence one hears in the performances from Deutschland. It also has to do with the choristers who audition, so in that case one can only do so much with what one has to work with, such as James Burton with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. I heard his Choruses in the UK and they were an example of choral excellence, which is why the BSO brought him here to begin with, to get their Tanglewood Festival Chorus back up to the level of excellence expected of them as the Official Chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops.
The Tanglewood Festival Chorus had declined in quality under their Founder/Director John Oliver. Even some members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra tried to be diplomatic by saying about the Chorus, “I hear some unevenness in the Chorus.” “Unevenness” didn’t begin to cover the problems! I think John Oliver kept choristers in the Chorus– because they became good friends? — beyond their “Expiration” date when they should have been shown the door, such as with those screaming, cackling and wobbling sopranos he had, especially in their upper register when they performed Beethoven’s Ninth and Mahler’s Resurrection. They sounded dreadful. Who likes that sound? Someone with no ear for choral excellence, that’s who! So the BSO hired James Burton from the UK to come to Boston, and the bro (James) can only do so much with what he has to work with and the people who audition. So James changed the audition standards and requirements for the TFC including music theory, which pissed off much of the Chorus. Some choristers lived under illusions that just because they had been in the Chorus for years, that this somehow meant that they had the right to remain in the Chorus. Wrong! It doesn’t work that way, people, with any credible Chorus. So as I remember about that, I think one-third or more of the Chorus resigned due to the new stringent audition requirements. And then others couldn’t pass the new audition, so they were out and pissed off. I’ve only seen 1-2 brief clips of them, but I think the Tanglewood Festival Chorus is a smaller Chorus now than it was under Oliver. I read that the Chorus rehearsals these days are like having a dinner with divorced parents. Cold in other words. But the TFC was never intended to be some “Community Chorus” type thing with permanent membership.
As for the title of this article, one might be interested to know that as of 2024, there were eleven Deutsch Radio Orchestras. And there are currently seven Radio Choruses in Deutschland that belong to the Association of Public Broadcasting Corporations in the Federal Republic of Germany (ARD) and “Radio Orchestras and Choruses Ltd (Rundfunkorchester und -Chöre GmbH, or ROC)” in Berlin. These Choruses are part of a broader system of 11 Radio Orchestras, 4 big bands, and, again, the 7 Radio Choruses.
The so-called “greatest country” has no network(s) with its own Orchestra(s) and Chorus(es). Nada.
In the US (the so-called “greatest country”…roll eyes, which is currently being destroyed by the insane and thin-skinned convicted felon/rapist and authoritarian dictator — by yet another executive order intended to bypass Congress — has ended all federal funding for the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting), which PBS (the Public Broadcasting System, the television side) and the radio side, NPR (National Public Radio) are a part of. Ending the funding for the CPB is seen by this closeted nazi as “Making America Great Again” as part of “The Golden Age.” Insanity. By the way, he and his cultists still haven’t said which “America” they’re talking about or do they even know there are three Americas (North America, Central America and South America). I was told by one of his cultists, “There’s only one America.” Yes, that’s what I would expect from them. Like their messiah, they’re not the brightest people. When I told them to give a glance to a world map they told me, “I don’t believe in maps.” Okay. So that’s the mindset one is dealing with here. One wonders how they get to a place where they haven’t been before without using a road map.
This Chorus from Deutschland — Michael Alber’s WDR Rundfunkchor — is an all-paid Chorus of the Deutsch Radio Network. Again, how many television or radio networks in the States have their own Orchestra and Chorus? NONE. So much for that “greatest country” bunk. Yet, some people in the US love to be told that they are the “greatest country.” It’s just mindless chest-beating. Question: why does there have to be a so-called “greatest country” and what determines that? The reality is that all one has to do is just a little bit of travelling around the world to learn that the ‘greatest country’ rubbish is just that, especially when the ‘greatest country’ has a scum of the Earth piece of putrid ignorant trash running the country; one of the most willfully-ignorant pieces of basura one will find anywhere, speaking of “a pathetic world loser.” He’s an international embarrassment. And the same goes for that redneck, hillbilly VP and white nationalist cabinet. These trash are the scum of Earth, everyone of them.
Interestingly, I read a couple of days ago that Marco Rubio — the Latino who clearly hates other Latinos — referred to “our great nation” the other day. I thought: Oh, so we are already a “great nation” again in the “Make America Great Again” scheme/pabulum. Well that didn’t take long, only about 100 days. So we must not have been that bad off that our alleged “greatness” has already been restored. I don’t think he meant to say that; I think it was a slip. Of course the “Make America Great Again” nonsense is just that. It’s an empty slogan for the most gullible of simple minds and stupid people who need a messiah figure….the convicted felon’s cultists, who believe anything that piece of nazi trash says.
Now someone probably just got offended because I mixed music and politics because some people like to live in denial that the two are very intricately connected. They want to believe that music is this pure and innocent art form. They fail to understand how the world got many masterpieces from the various composers because of the politics of their day. I have never understood that mindset of divorcing politics from music when they are clearly very connected, and it shows people’s ignorance of music. One glaring example I always use: How does one think we would have gotten Britten’s War Requiem if Benjamin had said that “politics and music should never be connected?” I know of one classical musician who thinks that way. I can’t stand stupid people and I’ve learned that one cannot fix stupid, so don’t even try. She’s also the type that thinks that pianists should perform “from memory” but when she performs as a singer she uses her score. Ms. Hypocrite.
Andrés, the conductor for this performance, is one of the most humble and modest conductors I know of. He doesn’t make it all about himself, but rather immediately begins thanking the Orchestra, then the First and Second Concertmasters (Florin and Maximilian Junghanns), then the Principal Cellist, then the Chorus from Cologne, and the other sections and asks each to take a bow.
I’ve seen Clara Andrada de la Calle, the Principal Flautist in this performance, play this piece before. She was also the soloist near the end of the piece for the performance below. There, her solo begins at approximately 14.05 in the video below. Clara is just as humble and modest as Andrés. She takes her bow but then motions to the second and third chair flautists down the row from her as to say “it’s not all about me”: