Conductors are supposed to live forever; everyone knows that. So even after learning the seriousness of his condition, I never really imagined that I would have to live in a world without Robert Bass. It doesn't seem possible. Bob’s been a central part of my life for twenty years--almost as long as I’ve lived in New York--and he transformed the world for me. Six days a week, I was just an ordinary New Yorker, but every Monday night, I became something more--a musician, and part of something much bigger than myself.
I grew up thinking of Carnegie Hall as a legend and a symbol--the place the greatest musicians aimed for. Because of Bob, the first time I ever entered the hall in real life, it was to perform there. I found myself singing with musicians I’d idolized for years (including one or two on whom I'd had mad schoolgirl crushes). In my fondest daydreams, I might have hoped to shake James Levine’s hand someday, but instead I found myself singing the Verdi Requiem under his baton. I had a front row seat in rehearsals where I could listen in as Dmitri Hvorostovsky and the flute player figured out how to coordinate their rubato in “Eri tu.” I watched Bob and Deborah Voigt working out the fine points of her debut performance of Fidelio. I sang in the U.S. premiere and (fifth performance ever) of an opera by Handel. I was able to impress even my less-than-classically-inclined friends by appearing in the MTV awards, and by singing in the American debut of Paul McCartney’s oratorio.
I could go on listing moments like these—times when I felt like Cinderella suddenly transported to the ball—for ages. But of course the glamour, the excitement, and the public notice, thrilling though they were, were not what really mattered. The important thing about Bob was not that he gave the members of the Collegiate Chorale the chance to sing with some of the world’s greatest musicians, or in some of the most exciting performances of the New York season. The truly remarkable thing was that, under his guidance, we genuinely belonged there. He took a bunch of singers of varied levels of talent, skill, potential, and determination, and every week he pushed us, cajoled us, and bullied us into becoming a group that was much more than the sum of its parts. In recent years, I would sometimes hear a choral piece on the radio and be struck by the beauty of the chorus's sound and the depth and passion of the performance—only to discover at the end that I had been listening to the Collegiate Chorale. Bob made of us an instrument that could (and did) hold its position anywhere in the world, with anyone.
When I joined the Chorale Bob was just ending his boy-wonder years--he took control of the Collegiate Chorale at only 26 (younger than Gustavo Dudamel is now). I watched him transform the group from a skillful and highly respected traditional choral society into his personal vision of a unique "celebration of the vocal arts." Especially in regard to some of the administrative changes, this was not a painless process, and I think it's safe to say that no one agreed with every step he took. (Even I found it hard to summon up complete enthusiasm for his decision that, to create the best possible sound balance, our small corps of professional choristers should stand in the front row despite the fact that this put six-footers in front of five-foot-two me.) But he left us with the Collegiate Chorale we know today. Over the years we moved from a concentration on choral classics to an emphasis on vocal versatility, adding concerts of hard-to-classify vocal pieces such as the New York premiere of the "White House Cantata," which offered the audience a chance to hear the marvelous music Leonard Bernstein wrote for a doomed Broadway show, or a live performance of Prokofiev's choral score for "Ivan the Terrible," with scenes from the movie. Most notably, he added regular performances of opera-in-concert, giving the chorus a chance to become vocal actors.
I think what endeared Bob to us, even when he was driving us crazy and riding roughshod over our sensitivities was his blazing passion for the music above all else. The most important thing was not how the chorus felt, what the audience or the critics thought, how famous or important the soloists were, or how prominent the event was. He cared greatly about all these things of course, but only as they served the goal of making music, and making it with as much depth, meaning, and excellence as possible. This commitment was visible in every performance he conducted. As much as I could, I always tried to memorize my part, because I didn’t want to miss a moment of watching Bob and seeing the intensity and love that radiated from him as he conducted.
One of my last memories of Bob underlines for me the way he strove for musical excellence above all else, even at times when it would have been perfectly understandable to retreat to more personal concerns. When I heard he was ill, I offered, as one does in such situations, to help out any way I could if he or his family needed anything. He thought about it and said, well, his score library was kind of disordered—could I come up and try to make sense of it with him?
And now, unbelievable as it seems, all this single-minded passion and determination is gone, and the world is a much less magical place than I thought. When we meet next Monday for our first rehearsal, it’s going to seem very strange to sit down and try to sing the Verdi Requiem. How I hope we will be able to recapture Bob’s conviction that realizing the profound beauty of this extraordinary composition is important in a way that transcends our personal sorrow and sense of loss.
I will be thinking of several things as we begin to prepare for our first concert without Bob. Last year, Opera News magazine online published an article in which Bob talked about his most cherished recordings. One of them was the Collegiate Chorale’s own performance at Verbier of the double chorus “Sanctus” from the Verdi Requiem. When we were preparing for Verbier, Bob kept pushing us on that one long after we thought we knew it quite well enough. On our first day in Switzerland, we found ourselves almost immediately at a rehearsal, and James Levine started us off with this double chorus. Completely disoriented from jet lag, half-asleep on our feet, and badly in need of a meal, we nonetheless pulled it off cleanly and elegantly. Bob was visibly proud of us then, and I’m sure he would expect no less from us at next Monday's rehearsal.
At this first rehearsal, as we look back on Bob’s tremendous achievement in transforming The Chorale, and look forward to the future in which it will be our responsibility to maintain and enlarge on what he gave us, I can’t help feeling that he chose for us the perfect piece with which to carry on. Not because it is a requiem, but because it is both intensely operatic and a great choral classic.
And so was Bob.
-- Janet Pascal, Chorale Music Librarian
3 comments:
janet, was a beautiful piece on Bob. and all of it reflects my feelings, and i am sure, many other chorale members.
Good for people to know.
I just learned of Bob's untimely passing, and was stunned and saddened. I had the privilege of singing with the Chorale under Bob in the late 1980's - 1990's. As Janet said so beautifully, Bob was the consummate conductor. He was inspirational, professional, and non-screaming, in contrast to other conductors I had. I thought it fitting that the first concert the Chorale since performed was the Verdi Requiem in Carnegie Hall. We also performed the piece in Carnegie Hall, and it was the most memorable night in my 20 years of choral singing. Even with this choral standard, as always Bob taught and conducted his own personal interpretation of the piece. Unbelievably, before applauding at the end, the audience sat in stunned silence. It is the kind of thing you see only in movies. I understood the audience reaction because I myself was shocked when the magic of the music ended. After the concert, one of my friends told me it was indeed the best Verdi Requiem he had ever heard. There are many of us who had the privilege of singing with this charismatic and talented man during our sojourn in New York City. Each of us mourn this great loss personally, and extend our sympathies to Bob's loving family and present Chorale members.
Post a Comment