Gateways fest offers spirited 'Ninth Symphony'

The 1999 Gateways Music Festival resounded at the Eastman Theatre with Beethoven’s last symphony, his ninth.

Also on the program, and its ice-breaker, was Anthony Kelly’s The Breaks, a work written for the American Composers Orchestra in New York in 1998.

This young piece of music is dedicated to the art of Morton, Armstrong, Ellington, and Gillespie.  Some influences of Gershwin was clearly present as well.

The Breaks sometimes lagged in intensity and direction but picked up nicely as the transitions opened to various musical portraits and styles of the above-mentioned music stars of our century.

The Gateways Music Festival Orchestra was conducted by K. George Roberts.  Kelly, resident composer of the Richmond Symphony, was in the audience and stood up to warm applause.

Michael Morgan conducted the Gateways Orchestra and Chorus as well as the four soloists in the Ninth Symphony.  The musicians of the orchestra, having just gathered for this special event from all ends of the country and many different symphony orchestras, had little time to integrate and become a unit with a spirit all its own.

Having had only two rehearsals and one general rehearsal, the ensemble at times suffered.  The spirit, however, and the identity was quite present.

The sweetness of tone in the string sections first violins and violas, the clear and alive winds, a world class timpani and the balance of voices more than made up for any imperfections in the performance of the Ninth Symphony.

The musicians and the singers brought the intensity of love and the enthusiasm of fervent expression to the music.

The soloists – Mary Winston-Smith, soprano; Tichina Vaugn, mezzo soprano; George Shirley, tenor; and John Williams, baritone – and the chorus did a fine job of Schiller’s Ode to Joy.

Beethoven had this material on his desk in 1793, but only integrated the wonderful words of the great poet in 1823, when he decided that the inclusion of the voice in the last movement was to be a fitting conclusion to this monumental work.

Mary Winston-Smith sang the words in the original German language.

One could feel the music and the words transcend the boundaries of the language, faith, or denomination as the composition reminded the listener of something greater, something wonderful, something that is everything and therefore beyond division or barriers; something from which this divine spark of inspiration could strike into the souls of minds of the people writing and the people performing this music and these words more than 200 years later.

On stage, the Rev. Raymond H. Fleming, pastor of Emmanuel Church of the Deaf, translated the words and even the emotional and dynamic content into some of the most expressive and beautiful sign language I have ever seen.

Indeed, I daresay Beethoven, wherever he is today, must have smiled at this gateway into the humane spirit and unity celebrated at the Eastman Theatre.  The Ninth Symphony has seen better performances throughout its considerable history, but not many as warm, innocent and sincere.