A Melodious Reunion

This past weekend I had the opportunity to take part in a reunion of the Schubertians, the men's chamber choir of which I was a part while at UCSB. The group was in existence from 1964 to 1995, and had just over 200 total members in the course of its history. We have had a few formal reunions in the past, which now take on greater significance since the group is no longer active and Carl Zytowski, the director, is in his mid-80s (but still going strong).

The reunion was great fun. I knew very few of the men, some of them older than my parents, but the sensation of picking up a song that even the youngest of the group last sang regularly more than ten years ago and being able to hit every note and clip every cutoff was extraordinary. Thirty years worth of singers with a common thread in the music and director can yield a uniquely unified group of people that spans generations. I had the opportunity to be a part of a sub-group of Southern California Schubertians that sang two songs, plus one in combination with a Northern California sub-group that itself sang two extra songs. The one rehearsal we had at one of our members' homes in Santa Monica was the very definition of what these songs were all about: a group of musicians enjoying a fine afternoon of great music and friendship.

The reunion concert itself was great fun, a mixture of hard work, nostalgia, and sentimentality. It was a sweet thing to have wives and children fill the auditorium seats that were once occupied by girlfriends and (extraordinarily loyal) roommates back in our student days. The concert was dedicated to one of the forces behind the reunion, who is dying of cancer and wanted to have another chance to hear the songs before his time was up. Thankfully, he rallied over the last couple of months and was able to participate in the concert. He was even able to set aside his oxygen line and rise from his wheelchair to sing a solo verse in the last song. I think most of us had difficulty seeing our music to sing the last chorus after he was done.

The local Santa Barbara News Press published a very nice review of the concert that accurately captured the feel of the event. Ordinarily I would link to an article, but because the News Press has an annoying registration requirement, please indulge me while I republish the whole thing here:

IN CONCERT: Schubert never sounded sweeter

GEORGE GELLES, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT

April 3, 2007 9:02 AM

Among his peers in the pantheon of great composers, Franz Schubert holds a special place. Bach and Haydn might be known for all-embracing industry, Mozart for dogged determination, Beethoven for innovations that swept away all before him, but Schubert was utterly unique in a different way: he was an archetype of sociability. He lived his life in a tight circle of colleagues, and his music welled from a source that, above all, valued intimacy of expression and companionship.

Listening to Schubert draws you into his circle. He is at his best when emotions are shared one-to-one, as in his more than 600 songs, and it is no surprise that he flops at forms, like opera, where a premium is placed on public spectacle. Though his later compositions are visionary in shape and substance (works such as the late piano sonatas and the final two symphonies), most of his output celebrates the amity of friendship.

The quintessential get-together for the composer and his friends was known as a Schubertiad, a word that referred to informal performances of Schubert's music at the home of a fellow musician or patron. These events got started in 1816 and found full flower during the following dozen years. We got a fine idea what such an occasion might have felt like on Saturday afternoon in UCSB's Lotte Lehmann Hall, when a Schubertiad was presented, logically enough, by the Schubertians.

The Schubertians, as we learned this weekend, were an enterprising group of UCSB vocalists who banded together to explore the wonderful repertory of Schubert's songs for men's voices. Carl Zytowski, who joined the music faculty in 1951 and set enviably high standards for all things vocal, was the group's founder and director. Established in 1964 and disbanded in 1995, when Professor Zytowski retired, the Schubertians included more than 200 singers during their impressive history. Approximately 70 alums from California and beyond participated in Saturday's performance, which was the ensemble's fourth major reunion in the past dozen years. With almost all of them active in professions other than music, they gave amateurism a good name.

Schubert composed for men's voices throughout his career, first as a teenage student in 1812 and finally as an acknowledged master facing a far-too-early death in 1828, and the songs span the gamut of emotions.

At the Schubertiad, we heard the light Italianate composition "La Pastorella" (The Shepardess), convivial drinking songs ("Bruder, unser Erdenwallen" and, even better, "Edit Nonna, Edit Clerus, A 16th Century Drinking Song," wrongly attributed to the 14th century in the Schubert Complete Edition and in Saturday's program), and works that pushed contemporary boundaries of temperament and technique: "Der Gondelfahrer" (The Gondolier), "Grab und Mond" (Grave and Moon) and "Der Entfernten" (To an Absent Lover), where the classically steeped Schubert defines the atmospherics of a new Romantic era.

Schubert was neither the first nor the only composer to write songs in praise of music, but far more than others, Schubert's wrench at your gut. They have immense evocative powers, and the two works of this sort that we heard, "Zur Guten Nacht" and "An die Musik," were prime. "An die Musik," in fact, which was sung by bass-baritone Michael Dean -- it's a solo song and not a choral work -- should be the national anthem for everyone who toils in music's fields.

"Nachthelle" (Brilliance of Night) was another masterpiece heard Saturday, exceptional even for Schubert, and it got a fine performance from tenor soloist Scott Whitaker, with the men's chorus led by guest conductor Jameson Marvin, UCSB alum and former Schubertian, who now is director of the Harvard Glee Club.

Conducting his choristers in the other compositions was Carl Zytowski, who, with a discreet gesture here, a telling nod there, was the picture of efficiency, leading his singers in winning performances. Their Schubertiad is one that Schubert himself surely would have enjoyed.

Indeed.