The Oberlin Orchestra and Conservatory Choral Ensembles in Review
The Oberlin Orchestra, Oberlin College Choir, Oberlin Gospel Choir, Oberlin Musical Union
Raphael Jiménez, Conductor
Chabrelle Williams, soprano; Ronnita Miller, mezzo-soprano; Limmie Pulliam, tenor; Eric Greene, baritone
Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
January 20, 2023
On January 20, Carnegie Hall was packed for a grand ending to the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as musicians from Oberlin performed a program featuring The Ordering of Moses, the fifty-minute oratorio (1932), by a noted black Canadian-American composer. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943). The Oberlin Orchestra, Oberlin College Choir, Oberlin Gospel Choir, and Oberlin Musical Union all joined forces for this still-underappreciated work, along with a first half consisting of the Tragic Overture of Brahms and a 2018 work by Puerto Rican composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez.
To open the program, Oberlin President Carmen Twillie Ambar greeted the audience with words about Oberlin’s historic role in the struggle for diversity and freedom, an important one indeed, as Oberlin was the first American college to fully admit Black students and the first to admit women. Conservatory Dean William Quillen followed with his own welcome, adding to his words in the program booklet, which had noted that R. Nathaniel Dett was an Oberlin graduate in 1908, the first Black double major, and the first Black alum to receive an honorary doctorate from them in 1926. One can understand, for such an Oberlin-centric occasion, that the speakers might not dwell on Dett’s history with many other institutes of higher education, but these included also Harvard (where he won two prizes, 1920-21), the Fontainebleau School in France, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger (1929), and the Eastman School of Music, where he received his Master of Music degree in 1932, composing The Ordering of Moses as his thesis (to be reworked for its premiere in 1937). Dett was a model of the scholarly and artistic ideals that uplift individuals and groups, and as the final jubilant movement of his oratorio resounded at Carnegie, there seemed enough inspiration in the hall to fuel the entire planet.
The connection between the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt into freedom and the emancipation of the enslaved Africans needs little explanation, but suffice it to say that spirituals are incorporated and woven into the texture throughout, as was a growing pursuit during Dett’s Oberlin days studying Dvořák, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and others. As Dett wrote later in 1918, “We have this wonderful store of folk music—the melodies of an enslaved people … But this store will be of no value unless we utilize it.” The spiritual Go Down Moses permeates his oratorio from the work’s first descending four-note motive in the cello, foreshadowing the specific intervals matched to the words “Egypt’s land.” The solo cellist, presumably the listed Principal, Amanda Vosburgh, handled this opening and her recurring solo lines with sensitivity. The orchestral playing was excellent overall under the direction of conductor Raphael Jiménez.
Enter the singers. We first heard from excellent baritone Eric Greene as The Word (essentially the narrator of the story) and later as the Voice of God. Mr. Greene was regal in delivering his solemn account of the Israelites’ bondage, and he was soon joined by mezzo-soprano Ronnita Miller, equally successful in projecting torment as the Voice of Israel. She was then paired in a compelling duet with the impressive soprano Chabrelle Williams as Miriam (sister of Moses). The chorus was powerful and passionate, to say the least, and always well-timed and reliable. Just occasionally the upper choral voices were overpowering to the point of stridency – only mentioned because a poor tyke in front of me was forced to cover his ears, and I sometimes wanted to do the same. Dett wrote so much brilliance into his orchestration itself, including the clanking of chains in the percussion section, that no exaggerated choral volume is necessary to convey the power of his ideas. Where the chorus was particularly effective was in parts where they echoed or underscored certain phrases, such as “Mercy Lord” or later in the “Hallelujah” which, as Courtney-Savali L. Andrews aptly put it in her program notes resembles “call-and-response – much like the climax of sermonic exegesis in the Black church.” Their timing was just right, and their preparation, credited in the program to conservatory faculty Gregory Ristow and Ben Johns, was excellent.
Though God in a traditional oratorio is generally a bass or baritone, tenor Limmie Pulliam is divine the second he opens his mouth. He was superb in his role as the hero Moses, projecting a warm, rich tone that captured the leader’s strength, but also the touch of vulnerability as he undertook his mission to cross the Red Sea.
All in all, these combined forces created a memorable interpretation of Dett’s magnum opus. High points were many, including the March of the Israelites which sets a haunting choral hum over an irresistibly driving beat. The latter’s kinship with later film scores (e.g., Rózsa’s King of Kings) may even suggest that later composers owed a certain debt to Dett (!). The highest point, naturally, was the rousing final section, He is King of Kings, in which all the musicians united in unbounded jubilance. Their ecstatic music of praise and deliverance was exceeded only by the roar of applause as listeners jumped to their feet. Bravissimo!
Incidentally, at the risk of sounding heretical, one wonders whether, just as Handel’s Hallelujah chorus is sometimes excerpted from the oratorio Messiah, this last movement of Dett (paired with perhaps one other) might allow audiences more valuable exposure to this very special composer for programs where there are not fifty minutes to spare. Perhaps this happens already, but I haven’t encountered it.
Meanwhile, with a first half that had fifteen minutes of spoken introduction, there was room on the program only for two relatively short works before intermission, the Tragic Overture of Brahms, Op. 81 (composed in 1880, the same year as the Academic Festival Overture) and A Metaphor for Power (2018) by ASCAP award-winning Puerto Rican composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez (b. 1990).
The Brahms was majestically done, with the passion that tends to be seen more frequently with student ensembles than with professionals (no “phoning it in”) – and there were only fleeting moments of rough edges where there could have been tauter ensemble. Especially beautiful were some of their hushed piano dynamics. The entire orchestra and their conductor Raphael Jiménez can be very proud.
A Metaphor for Power (taking its name from a famous James Baldwin quote) closed the first half. It is, in the words of its composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez, “a musical essay that attempts to address the present turbulence of ideologies, dreams, and hard-hitting realities. The piece unfolds as an expedition through an expanse of troublesome experiences visited by fleeting and unsuccessful moments of hope.” One need look no further for the latter “unsuccessful moments” than the fragments of America the Beautiful that dissolve into a dissonant chromatic puddle, the rumble of indecipherable spoken words that convey unrest, and the hints of My Country ‘Tis of Thee cast in irony and despair.
The orchestration reflects imagination, employing everything from harp and glockenspiel to Mahler hammer and tubular bells. There was no question that this composer is a gifted colorist with an abundance of emotional energy and the means to communicate it. He certainly had some fans in the audience, and he bounded to the stage exultantly afterwards to take his bows.
