Schuller’S Bach Conducting Legend Returns To Spokane For Bach Festival
Gunther Schuller, a titan in the classical music world, returns to Spokane this week for his seventh year as artistic director of the Northwest Bach Festival. The globe-trotting conductor and composer says he’s “still happy and thrilled” to be a part of the event.
The festival itself has survived its “troubled teenage years” to celebrate the beginning of its 21st season with a lecture today and the first of four concerts on Saturday. Schuller offered a glance over past seasons, a look at this year and a glimpse into the festival’s future.
Schuller, who will turn 74 in November, spoke by phone from his home outside Boston. He was still unpacking from a conducting trip to Holland and thinking about Bach as he was on his way to rehearsals for a Duke Ellington Centenary concert at Amherst.
“I was thrilled and delighted to be asked six years ago to become artistic director of the Bach Festival,” Schuller recalled. “While I have conducted just about every kind of music one can conduct, I don’t get asked to conduct Bach very often. I had conducted various works of Bach before, but to be invited to build a legacy of Bach performances over several years intrigued me very much. It’s something usually done only by Bach specialists - conductors like Helmut Rilling or Karl Richter.
“I’ll have to say, after six years I’m still happy and thrilled,” he adds.
As in his past seasons, Schuller will oversee the programming, conduct rehearsals and concerts, coach solo performers and speak at seminar sessions. He has solidified changes that have made the festival a unique combination of old and new approaches to Bach.
The event was introduced in 1978 by Spokane early-music specialists David Dutton and Beverly Biggs as a way to perform Bach on replicas of historical instruments using techniques based on 18th-century sources. After Dutton and Biggs withdrew from the festival in 1985, Boston harpsichordist and conductor Martin Perlman continued the historical-instrument orientation. Perlman was succeeded in 1988 by Stefan Kozinski, who introduced modern instruments (including electronic ones) and programmed 20th-century compositions alongside the music of Bach and his contemporaries.
When Schuller became artistic director in 1992, he returned the emphasis to Bach and his contemporaries. Modern flutes and violins sat down comfortably with such older instruments as harpsichords and violas.
“I respect the period-instrument movement,” Schuller says. “But it doesn’t mean you have to do that all the time. Bach’s music is indestructible, no matter what you play it on! If I can make the player of a modern instrument aware of what the capabilities of older instruments were and how that affects a style of playing, I have the advantages of historical style and the capabilities of modern instruments.
“Being the age I am,” Schuller says, “I grew up with the great Bach performances of conductors like Bruno Walter, and I can’t bring myself to say that all that was nonsense. There can be and should be a beautiful middle ground where you can pay respect to both approaches to Bach.”
Past seasons under Schuller’s leadership have seen performances of a variety of Bach works. His programming range has included such monumental undertakings as the St. Matthew and St. John Passions and the Christmas Oratorio as well as small works such as keyboard pieces and songs from Bach’s “Anna Magdalena Notebook.”
Making selections in Bach’s music is not much of problem for Schuller. “With Bach one can just assume the highest level of creativity,” he says. “I have been studying this music since I was a student. I’ve always sat in amazement at how Bach can take the minimum of material and manipulate it almost the way a mathematician works with formulas and then come out with the glorious music - perfect melodically and harmonically. This music never ceases to dazzle me. How can one person do these things so well, do so much of it and do it so quickly.”
Asked what past performances he was proudest of, Schuller hesitated. “If I were pushed into a corner, I would say the `St. Matthew Passion’ but I could just as easily say the `St. John Passion,”’ he says. “That was a great personal thrill. Some heart-rending moments make it impossible to keep your eyes dry.
“But I can’t leave out performances of others where I just had the pleasure to sit in the audience and listen,” Schuller says. “James Christie’s first organ recital two years ago was just one of those times.”
Schuller has used Spokane area soloists such as alto JoAnne Bouma, oboist Keith Thomas and violinist Kelly Farris along with distinguished visiting artists like Christie, the organist for the Boston Symphony; French harpsichordist Ilton Wjuniski, and Metropolitan Opera bass James Maddalena.
Even with his past successes at the Bach Festival, Schuller finds some unfinished business to look forward to. “I hope before this all ends, or I end, to do Bach’s `Magnificat’ and the B Minor Mass,” he says. “I think we ought to do the B Minor Mass next. Because in the year 2000, we will celebrate the 315th birthday of Bach and the 250th anniversary of his death. And the Mass is one of the towering masterpieces of all music literature, not just Bach’s.”
Besides his work as a conductor and administrator of the Northwest Bach Festival and his continent-hopping as a conductor, Schuller the composer has fulfilled several commissions this year for new works. Schuller the businessman has found time to run music publishing and recording companies. Schuller the writer has put aside work on two book projects: a projected autobiography and the third installment of his history of jazz.
“I do too much,” he confesses.
Until December his schedule included directing The Festival at Sandpoint. In December, Sandpoint and Schuller parted company. “Resignation” was the official word, “dismissal” is Schuller’s description. “At least now I will have a few more days in the year to devote to a 2-foot stack of notes for the autobiography,” he says with only a remote note of wistfulness in his voice.
This year’s festival officially gets under way today at noon with “An Introduction to the 1999 Bach Festival” by Eastern Washington University music history instructor Karen Walthinsen in the school’s Music Building.
Friday’s opening concert will include Spokane soprano Tamara Schupman singing Bach’s “Wedding Cantata,” Ilton Wjuniski performing harpsichord sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, and an ensemble of local musicians performing Mozart’s “Musical Joke.”
The festival’s opening concert will be held in a new location, at 1017 W. First in the building which once housed Spokane’s Odd Fellows Hall.
On Tuesday, pianist Veronica Jochum will perform music by Bach and music inspired by Bach. Her recital will begin with a group of short preludes and “Two-Part Inventions” (which make up every piano student’s first experience with Bach) and end with Bach’s brilliant “Italian Concerto.”
Next weekend’s Bach performances will include an organ recital Friday evening by James David Christie and the festival’s closing concert of cantatas and concerts on Sunday afternoon. Both performances are at First Presbyterian Church.
In addition to the formal concerts, 10 other Bach-related events (all of them free and open to the public) have been scheduled in Spokane and at EWU.
NORTHWEST BACH FESTIVAL SCHEDULE The 21st annual Northwest Bach Festival begins today and continues through Feb. 21. Each of the four concerts will be preceded by a lecture by Verne Windham, music director for public radio station KPBX-FM, one hour before each concert. Concerts Saturday: Bach’s Wedding Cantata and works by Scarlatti and Mozart. The Bach Ensemble with soprano Tamara Schupman, harpsichordist Ilton Wjuniski and oboist Keith Thomas. Gunther Schuller will conduct. The Adventure Society Hall (1017 W. First), 3 p.m., repeated at 8 p.m. All tickets $20, includes a Valentine’s dessert. Tuesday: Piano Inspired by Bach. Veronica Jochum, pianist. The Met, 8 p.m. Feb. 19: Bach and the Organ. James David Christie, organist, assisted by Ilton Wjuniski, harpsichordist. First Presbyterian Church (318. S. Cedar), 8 p.m. Feb 21: Cantatas and Concertos with Gunther Schuller conducting the Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus with harpsichordist Ilton Wjuniski, pianist Linda Siverts, soprano Darnell Preston, alto JoAnne Bouma, tenor Fritz Robertson and baritone Robert Honeysucker. First Presbyterian Church, 3 p.m. Except as noted, concert tickets are $16 for adults and $8 for students, available at G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT. Other events Today: “Introduction of the 1999 Northwest Bach Festival.” Lecture by Karen Walthinsen, EWU instructor of Music History. Room 248, EWU Music Building in Cheney, noon. Tuesday: “This Bach is Bound for Glory: J.S. and Pop Culture.” Lecture by Bill Wolf, EWU visiting professor of composition. Room 248, EWU Music Building in Cheney, noon. “Interpretation of the Great Classics: Respectfully True or Willfully False?” Lecture by Gunther Schuller, artistic director of the Bach Festival. EWU Music Building Recital Hall in Cheney, 3 p.m. Wednesday: Bach and Beyond: Concert with Comments. Veronica Jochum, pianist. EWU Music Building Recital Hall in Cheney, noon. Afternoon with the Artist. Veronica Jochum, pianist, Bach Festival guest artist. EWU Music Building Recital Hall in Cheney, 2 to 4 p.m. Feb. 18: Afternoon with the Artist. Robert Honeysucker, baritone, Bach Festival guest artist. Room 216, EWU Music Building in Cheney, 1 to 3 p.m. Feb. 19: “Curious, Spurious Bach,” Concert with Comments. Verne Windham, the Spokane String Quartet and other guest artists. EWU Music Building Recital Hall in Cheney, noon. Feb. 20: Morning with the Artist. James David Christie, organ, Bach Festival guest artist. First Presbyterian Church (318 S. Cedar), 9 to 11 a.m. Feb. 20: Singing Bach Seminar with festival artists Fritz Robertson and Robert Honeysucker, Westminster Congregational Church (411. S. Washington), 10 a.m. to noon. (For more information, call Tamara Schupman at 624-7992.) Feb. 22: “The Tangible and the Intangible: Art in the Age of the Baroque.” Lecture by Barbara Miller, EWU Professor of Art History. Room 248, EWU Music Building in Cheney, 4 p.m. Bach Festival Concerts and other events are available as a two-credit course at Eastern Washington Univesity. For information, call the EWU Music Department at 359-2241.