Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 18, 1994 TAG: 9403180068
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A year ago the music director at Greene Memorial United Methodist Church was putting together this season's fine-arts series when his wife, Rita, made what he thought was an off-the-wall suggestion.
"She was looking through some vocal music catalogs and came across it. She said, `What do you know about the "Liverpool Oratorio"?' and I said, `Absolutely nothing.' So I wrote for a copy of the score, and the more I played it and looked through it, the more delighted I became with the whole thing."
As a result of Rita Cummins' casual question, a local audience can hear what will be the first area performance of former Beatle Paul McCartney's only essay into classical music this Sunday at 4 p.m. at Greene Memorial Church in Roanoke.
Dick Cummins says he was frankly dubious about the "Liverpool Oratorio" at first. He thought it unlikely that a pop tunesmith, even a master like McCartney, could handle a large-scale form like an oratorio.
"I didn't know what to expect, and approached the whole thing with a lot of skepticism. But it is in my opinion a really beautiful work," said Cummins.
The "Liverpool Oratorio" was composed to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and was premiered on June 28, 1991. McCartney attempted to learn how to read and write musical notation for the project, but eventually gave up in frustration, describing his approach to classical music as "primitive."
He was helped in translating his ideas to an orchestral score by conductor and film composer Carl Davis, who spent hundreds of hours working with McCartney. Davis listened to McCartney's musical concepts at the keyboard and turned them into a colorful score that calls for huge orchestral forces.
An oratorio is a little like an opera minus scenery, costumes and physical action. Originally confined solely to religious subjects, oratorios by the 20th century were written on secular themes by composers like Shostakovich and Prokofiev.
Though the "Liverpool Oratorio" opens in classic Anglican fashion with boys' voices singing a liturgical text, the work is basically secular. The story deals with a child's loss, and an adult's eventual recovery, of innocence, faith and love.
McCartney's protagonist is a working-class Liverpool boy named Shanty, born like his creator amid World War II air-raid sirens. Bored with school, Shanty prefers to "sag off" in the cathedral graveyard, where he encounters the spirit of his future bride, Mary Dee, who resembles McCartney's real-life wife, Linda.
The work follows Shanty's life as a confused teen-ager, his marriage to Mary Dee, their domestic troubles, the birth of their son, and their renewed faith in each other and the future.
The premiere featured classical music superstars Kiri Te Kanawa, Willard White, Jerry Hadley and Sally Burgess, and is available on an EMI compact disc.
Though Sunday's performance in Roanoke will feature a full vocal complement of nine soloists, chorus and boy choir, Cummins will employ an instrumental reduction for organ and piano. He has also slightly shortened the intermissionless work - originally nearly a hour and 40 minutes long - since the Greene Memorial Choir will be unable to sit during the performance.
Though McCartney made his reputation writing pop songs of gem-like purity and simplicity, Cummins says the "Liverpool Oratorio" is viciously difficult in spots.
"There are some places that are extremely simple and other places of extreme complexity. Throughout the whole thing there are constant meter changes: 7/8, 3/4, 4/4, 6/4, 9/8, 2/4 and 5/4, sometimes as many as 12 meter changes on one page.
"And then there are places where people have to get the pitch from out of the air. There's one segment in which the choir sings in B-flat, but the baritone must come in in the key of B major. You can't get any farther apart than that.`
Tenor Joe Gaskey, singing the role of Shanty, will have the toughest job of the afternoon, with a part that soars to a high C and frequently lingers around high A and B-flat.
Other soloists include Jack Wimmer as the Headmaster, Jayne Vest and Rita Cummins as the ghostly and live versions of Mary Dee, Jean Rakes as the Spanish teacher Miss Inkley, and Brian St. John as the boy treble.
"The boy choir part is very beautifully written, and one point - where the boys are having a Spanish lesson in the movement called `School' - might be referred to as the scherzo, kind of like comic relief," said Cummins.
The three-part boy choir role will be sung by the Montgomery County Boychoir, which has been prepared by their director, Lynn Whitescarver.
Cummins believes he can detect the fact that McCartney was more comfortable writing for solo voice than for a chorus. "The whole thing relies heavily on the solo voices, and the chorus for the most part simply comments - like a Greek chorus. It's the solo parts that move the action along."
Does Paul McCartney have a future in classical music?
"Some of the harmonic progressions are somewhat cliched," admits Cummins. "And yet, they're handled with such an elegance that it works. He has a remarkable gift for melody, and there are some gorgeous tunes in here."
That's no secret to Beatles fans, many of whom have kept the EMI recording of the work in print for three years, making it one of the company's more successful contemporary classical recordings.
"They're gonna like the ending. It's a grandiose climax with the chorus which has a big diminuendo, and the last few bars are Shanty and Mary Dee - that's McCartney and Linda, his wife: `So on and on the story goes/From day to day throughout our lives/What can we do, that's how it grows/I am with you/Our love survives.' It ends simply and quietly and effectively," said Cummins.
The doors open for Sunday's single performance at 3 p.m, with curtain time at 4 p.m. Admission is free, but an offering will be taken.
\ pullout: "Liverpool Oratorio" will be performed Sunday, 4 p.m., at Greene Memorial Church in Roanoke.
by CNB