Requiem a Moving Close to Mayfest

(first published in The Cincinnati Post May 27, 1991)

The 1991 May Festival is history, but those who attended Saturday's final concert at Music Hall will remember it as the year Robert Shaw conducted the Berlioz Requiem.

Commanding an ensemble of 418, including three choruses, the Cincinnati Symphony and four brass choirs, the famed choral conductor led a shattering vision of the work.

As the singers intoned the closing "Amens" to soft benedictions in strings, the crowd of 2,984 rose to their feet in a lengthy ovation.

The May Festival Chorus, augmented by the May Festival Youth Chorus and the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, was a deeply human presence, from their softly whispered "Kyries" in the opening movement, to the shuddering emotions of the "Rex tremendae," which Shaw painted with nightmarish intensity.

Splendidly dramatic, the Requiem is a work of great variety and scale.

There is the softly contrite "Quid sum miser" for men's voices and the a capella "Quaerens me," for instance. It's famed for its ingenious instrumental effects - trombone and flutes in the "Hostias," brushed cymbals and bass drum in the "Sanctus."

But it's the big moments that one never forgets: the brassy, apocalyptic "Tuba mirum" with its thundering timpani, which Shaw carried off without a hitch, turning to conduct the two brass choirs in the balcony.

Still, the evening's most sublime moment occurred in the "Sanctus" with John Aler's lustrous tenor floating down from the gallery like an angelic voice, answered by joyous "Hosanna's" in the chorus.

This year's May Festival, led by Shaw, May Festival chorus director Robert Porco and guest conductor Kenneth Jean, found the 118-year-old institution in good shape, both artistically and at the box office (May Festival music director James Conlon is taking a leave of absence and will return for the '92 festival).

Concerts were well-attended, two of the four Music Hall programs drawing more than 3,000 (May 18's Bach-Beethoven concert drew 2,828).

The May Festival Chorus, fresh from its March 15 triumph at New York's Carnegie Hall, performed with a polish and professionalism worthy of its growing reputation, while programs offered a variety of music, including an all-American concert May 17 that should be made a May Festival tradition.

Festival highlights: soprano Marvis Martin and baritone Gordon Hawkins in excerpts from Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess"; Beethoven's Mass in C Major with the May Festival Chorus led by Porco; soprano Benita Valente in Bach's "Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen"; mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer's Parto, parto from Mozart's "La clemenza di Tito" at Covington's Cathedral Basilica; Mozart's Mass in C Minor ("The Great") with Shaw and the May Festival Chorus; and, resoundingly, the Berlioz Requiem.