ASO Pays Robert Shaw Tribute With His Most Challenging Work

Robert Shaw called it “physical and intellectual agony.” Donald Runnicles said it’s “excruciatingly difficult.” These two distinguished conductors are not  talking about a climb to the peak of Mount Everest; they’re describing the “Everest” of Beethoven’s compositions — the “Missa Solemnis.”

What makes this work so demanding is the music Beethoven wrote for the chorus and solo vocalists. On “City Lights,” Lois Reitzes joked that it’s “the greatest piece never heard.” So why isn’t it performed more often? Runnicles, the principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, said that, first and foremost, “you need a first-rate chorus.”

Thankfully, Runnicles said. “We, of course, in Atlanta have, as far as I’m concerned, one of the world’s great choruses.”

The reputation of the ASO, and particularly the ASO Chorus, is built on the legacy of Robert Shaw.  Shaw was the founding director of the symphony, taking the ensemble from community orchestra to professional organization. Shaw’s specialty was chorus, and Runnicles grew up listening to his recordings and “worshipping at the altar of Robert Shaw.”