A Long Journey: 60 Years of the RIAS Kammerchor

by Hababuk Traber

What may appear to be a disadvantage can be a blessing in disguise. In retrospect, it turned out to be a good thing that the Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) founded 60 years ago in Berlin was unable to decide in favour of a large radio chorus, but had to settle for a “small solution”. Thus the RIAS Kammerchor, an established institution since 15 October 1948, was a complete anomaly among its peers. While other broadcasters, even in East Berlin, engaged up to 100 singers, the RIAS Kammerchor had to be content with a team comprising less than a third of that number. In those days that must have seemed in many situations to be a real deficiency. The ideal – among both amateurs and professionals – was the large chorus, which could make part of its impression through sheer power. And that was true not only in Germany. Yet at some point, after roughly a third of the RIAS Kammerchor’s journey, attitudes changed. Historical performance practice – not just the idea but the aesthetic consequence of doing something new – rejected the monumental distension of early music by Bach and other masters of the pre-Classical period. This move coincided with trends in new music: clarity of sound, transparency of structure (precisely on account of its complexity), secure intonation – often seeking a type of sound that achieves its impact (and conviction) out of the value and commitment of each and every individual. Music should not merely impress; it should also speak and encourage the listener to search for meaning.

RIAS Kammerchor mit Herbert Froitzheim, 1949

Changing styles

The RIAS Kammerchor was better prepared for this gradual (by no means abrupt) shift in style than most of its larger siblings at other broadcasting organizations. Certainly, like all the others, the West Berlin choral professionals were required to play their part in the performance of the choral-symphonic repertoire, usually with some reinforcement required. They also made a name for themselves with premieres of 20th-century music. Both endeavours are among the core activities of German radio vocal ensembles. But ever since the choir’s earliest years, it has also recorded for broadcast an increasingly large number of Bach cantatas. Herbert Froitzheim and Günther Arndt, the first two conductors responsible for the choir, performed them, as did Karl Ristenpart. Their forward-looking contribution as interpreters to West Berlin Radio’s music-cultural profile is unfortunately often ignored. The young Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a regular participant in those first recordings.

There are worlds separating the Bach interpretations of the early years and those of Marcus Creed, René Jacobs or Philippe Herreweghe – they can scarcely be compared. And yet the difference in sound reveals a change in the spirit of the times. The history of the RIAS Kammerchor is also a history of the reception of early music (from the Renaissance to Romanticism), a history of the relationship between choral culture and modernism, and a history of the transformation of media and the public. The RIAS Kammerchor began as a radio chorus without its own live appearances. Today it is a concert ensemble of international stature and with its own Berlin concert series forming the core and focus of its work.

RIAS Kammerchor mit Uwe Gronostay, 1972

Objectives in place: Uwe Gronostay

This transformation was the result of a long process. The objectives were put in place by Uwe Gronostay, who directed the RIAS Kammerchor from 1972 to 1986. He brought to Berlin the ideal of a transparent, homogeneous sound, with a markedly clear, chamber-like texture, and he realized this idea with the patience and single-mindedness of a musician who knows that lasting changes need time. His model for achieving perfection and flawless intonation was Eric Ericson and his work with the Swedish Radio Chorus. Gronostay’s independent programmes and the establishment of regular New Year’s concerts laid the foundation for the choir’s subscription concert series, while his tours to France, Scandinavia and Poland created the basis for its extensive international activities. World premieres and first local performances of works by Boris Blacher, Mauricio Kagel, Milko Kelemen, Ernst Krenek Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki and Aribert Reimann have solidified the choir’s reputation of expertise in demanding music of the present day. In 1978 Gronostay realized his idea of a choral network with an initiative for a meeting of European professional choirs. Its principal aim would be that of creating an exchange of artistic ideas to serve as a mutual stimulus for raising standards. The RIAS Kammerchor took up this idea again with its TENSO days under Daniel Reuss.

Uwe Gronostay,1977

Profile raised: Marcus Creed

Upon the foundation Gronostay created, Marcus Creed, chief conductor from 1986 to 2001, raised the choir’s profile. His standard-setting first complete performance of Ernst Krenek’s Lamentations was a pioneering achievement; this work created in exile by the Viennese composer was previously regarded as unperformable. Creed moulded the RIAS Kammerchor into a world leader among ensembles adopting historical performance practice, also attracting the regular collaboration of musicians like Philippe Herreweghe and René Jacobs. In 1988 he established with his team the series of subscription concerts that have since become an indispensable part of the capital’s cultural agenda. Having sharpened the choir’s outer profile (early and new music), Creed also incorporated a new view of the historical middle-ground, the Romantic repertoire. His Schubert and Brahms recordings with the RIAS Kammerchor are models of poetic, lucid Romanticism: great choral works illuminated like chamber music.

His successor Daniel Reuss sought to enhance the rhetorical differentiation that the choir is capable of displaying by providing its sound with a stronger physical presence. He initiated projects in which specialists for early and new music, in collaboration with the RIAS Kammerchor, sounded out new possibilities and new spaces for making choral music.

With the future in sight: Hans-Christoph Rademann

In the person of Hans-Christoph Rademann, the RIAS Kammerchor has found a new artistic director who embodies the ideal profile of a chief conductor. He made his name as a young conductor pursuing the principles of historical performance practice and with his re-discovery of long-forgotten treasures from the Dresden choral tradition. For his interpretations of Romantic choral works he has won several awards. A musician who has set standards in every important field of activity, he sees as an essential challenge that of producing convincing and exciting renditions of music of the present day. His programmes take full advantage of the choir’s artistic versatility and the diversity of its tonal palette. “My fundamental concept of a chorus” he says, is that it should have the colours of an orchestra and that with an a cappella ensemble one is also able to deploy orchestra colours.” In October the RIAS Kammerchor with Hans-Christoph Rademann will celebrate 60 years of dynamic development – and the prospect of a future marked by more of the same.