DOUGLAS NESLUND
CLASSICAL VOICE

For several years, discussions have taken place between Maestro Haselböck and the founder-director of the Tölzer Knabenchor, an unique boys’ choir located in an upscale suburb of Munich, on a collaboration that would bring the choir to Los Angeles during the month of December to perform some of the six individual cantatas that comprise Johann Sebastian Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium (Christmas Oratorio). 

“Der Chef” of the Tölzers is 70-year old Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden, and his wife, the Salzburg-born music teacher and Kodály expert Helga, who form a team as powerful in purpose as in focus and talent. For 52 years, boys trained by Der Chef have performed in virtually every opera house in Europe, as well as Boston and Chicago in the US. They have recorded with the greatest conductors of the 20^th century the music of Mahler, Mozart and so many more, most memorably a large percentage of the iconic Bach Cantata Series organized by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt, which series began with choirs as disparate as Kings College Cambridge and the Wiener Sängerknaben, but ended decisively in the choice of the most reliable of them all, the Tölzers.

In the beginning was a scout troop, commandeered by Professor Schmidt-Gaden, himself but 19 years of age, to form a boys’ choir after fellow Bavarian and composer Carl Orff asked him to form a choir for the purpose of recording Orff’s Schulwerk, a system of music education enhanced with Orffian compositions. His work with the boys caught the attention of no less than the Cantor of the Leipzig Thomasschule, Kurt Thomas, who saw in the young Schmidt-Gaden a talent worthy of cultivation, and an invitation to study in Leipzig followed.

While there, Schmidt-Gaden studied the Bachian scores and associated notes of the Master, and couldn’t fail to notice the disparity between the bloated numbers of choristers he saw performing, and the numbers of singers Bach himself utilized, and the clarity of vocal and textual line that fewer singers could make. He determined to return to his home in Bad Tölz and create a choir like Bach’s. Recalling his boy scout troop singers, he began to build a lifetime career, the ultimate success of which those who attend either of the performances of Weihnachtsoratorium in Los Angeles or Santa Monica will witness.

Rare, old wine

The art of preadolescent boys, singing works of the masters. Not a new idea to Los Angeles, but a missing one to those who know and love the art form. The single argument against such is that boys only sang throughout history because St. Paul ordered women to be silent in church. Not so fast! In fact, the apostle had written to one of the early Christian satellite churches, advising “mulier taceat in ecclesia.” But the subject of his dictum was not to prevent women from engaging in the service, but to stop one congregation’s female members from gossiping during the sermon. This bit of apostolic screed had nothing whatsoever to do with why boys, and not women, have sung in European and British cathedrals and chapels for centuries. Ever since the Hebraïc schools of the prophets, boys were taken into training for the sacred offices, including music, at a very early age. In fact, Hebrew traditions were commonly carried over into the early Christian church, including the training of boys. The sixth century regimentation by Pope Gregory I of existing choir schools, codification of chant and the establishment of new schools throughout Europe provides strong indication of the existence of singing boys.

Getting beyond the myth of misogyny also means undoing the destruction of hundreds of boys’ choirs in the United States in the 1970s and 80s in the name of equality, the excuse being offered that boys should not cherish a position of favor over girls, and therefore, boys’ choirs must go and be replaced by children’s choirs. All nice and equal.

There are two problems with that ideal: boys and girls didn’t join in equal numbers. In fact, in those boys’ choirs in which girls were added, the boys decamped, in large numbers. Nature and the bone marrow-depth laws of the human male determine that at the age of 10, 11 or even 12, boys normally prefer the company of their male peers, notwithstanding the claims of overeager egalitarians. But eventually, the testosterone flood begins, and it is then that most boys would begin to look at girls as mates. And a boy’s unchanged voice happens to be at its most beautiful from age 10 until just before the change – a thickening of the vocal folds, bones and cartilage and stretching of ligaments – and through this narrow wedge of time afforded by Mother Nature, we get to cherish unearthly beauty. If we can find it.

The second problem that egalitarians face is the inherent difference in vocal sound between a girl and a boy. While a few girls sound like boys and vice versa, a choir of trained boys does not sound at all like a choir of trained girls. So in order to achieve blend, a children’s choir must force the boys to “fit in” to the majority sound, thereby robbing the boy singers of their natural timbre and heritage. In an orchestra of flutes, the addition of oboes would disrupt the blend. Separate but equal is not such an awful idea in this instance.

It is during these few years that through their singing, boys can raise our spirits into celestial realms far above earthly cares. Bach knew this, as did many of his peers. And thus, he wrote arias of great emotional content, such as the pietistic dialogue between Jesus and the Soul in the second half of Cantata 21 (Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis) bearing the title “Komm, mein Jesu, und erquicke.” When sung by a bass and boy soprano, one can accept with comfort the respective “roles” and their intended meaning. If a woman is substituted for the boy, however, the very content of the text injects an unwelcome juxtaposition suggesting a spurious romantic relationship.  The obvious solution is almost entirely overlooked by those deemed to be the most informed contemporary performers of the Baroque: Trevor Pinnock, Nicholas McGegan, Ton Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki, and that rigid persona who still successfully misleads young musicians as to what constitutes authentic Baroque performance, Helmuth Rilling. These and dozens more continue to ignore the one, authentic Baroque instrument that formed a part of the core of musicians directed by Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries: the human boy soprano and, it can be argued, the human boy alto as well.

New German “bottles”

Fact: a 12-year old boy’s larynx is larger than an adult woman’s. Those who attend the Tölzers performances will hear Alexander, a 12-year old tenorino – a voice already changed for the most part, but who maintains the facility to sing in and out of alto range – seamlessly and beautifully. Andreas still reigns as the supreme soprano soloist, although he turns 15 in six months. His voice is so universal in scope, he can actually sing lower notes than most the altos. He has learned Alexander’s arias, in case the 12-year old’s voice goes south in the next couple of weeks. Andreas also bears the honorary title “Chor Opa” (choir grandpa).

Great expense is sought from foundations to purchase ancient instruments, or reliably accurate copies, while those few boys’ choirs willing to prepare their young singers in Baroque performance practice, go penniless and ignored. We just learned of the death of the Tölzer Knabenchor benefactor, Christian Schörghuber, who died unexpectedly last week at age 48. The choir is going to need to find another patron. Even the best must unfortunately live close to the edge.

That is why the coming of the Tölzer Knabenchor – a choir of a dozen men and 21 boys trained in as authentic a Baroque performance practice as exists on earth – is such an incredible opportunity to hear the sweet Advent and Christmas music of Bach as he himself heard it. It has been argued that Bach wrote his difficult music for adult singers, but what adult singers did he have? He wrote music for use in the four Leipzig churches over which he was responsible. He wrote for the instruments, human and otherwise, that he had at his disposal. He did not write greater and more difficult music than he could reasonably expect his singers to perform Sunday after Sunday.

In addition to the 21 boys arriving in Los Angeles, two Tölzer soloists are being dispatched to Paris for Esa-Pekka Salonen’s performance of Mahler’s “Das klagende Lied” (heard here in Los Angeles six years ago with two Tölzer soloists), while three other soloists are appearing in Bremen, Germany in a series of performances of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte.” Munich-area Advent and Christmas appearances are being handled by Choir II, a large contingent of younger boys wishing fervently for instant multiple voice changes in Choir I, i.e., those appearing in Los Angeles.

Fewer than a thousand Angelinos will be able to cherish this opportunity, as the two performances on December 13 and 14 will take place in auditoria seating fewer than 500 persons each. And each, Zipper Concert Hall, located within the Colburn School opposite the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, and The Broad Stage, in its inaugural season on the campus of Santa Monica College, are superb venues in which to bear witness to the artistry of the young German singers, their Baroque accompanists, and the glorious music written for them.

Those who are “too busy” to attend will not find any use of time more valuable than attending one or both of these rare opportunities. Given the death of their patron, a return by the Tölzer Knabenchor to Los Angeles in the future is not necessarily guaranteed.

Douglas Neslund is Classical Voice correspondent and a noted voice/choral teacher in Los Angeles.  

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