‘City Lights’ Host Begins Celebration Of Conductor Robert Shaw

And as an interviewer for the Atlanta Symphony Broadcasts, that includes “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes.

To open up our Shaw retrospective, producer Myke Johns turned the microphones on her for a conversation about who Shaw was and what he meant to the city of Atlanta.

Shaw stepped into the role of music director for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 1967 and held the position until he retired in 1988.

In ’67, however, Reitzes notes that it was not a full-time orchestra.

“By the time he retired in 1988,” she says, “I think it’s fair to say they were among the Top 20 orchestras in the country. Maybe the Top 10. And the chorus … simply mind-boggling because these are volunteers. No one was paid a dime, but no one could be more serious about the role. And boy, [Shaw] honed in on that.”

Reitzes is quick to point out that calling the Atlanta Symphony Chorus a “volunteer chorus” perhaps unfairly paints it as an amateur organization.

“Many of the people in the chorus were music professionals,” Reitzes says. “Some traveled from other states to come here to rehearse with him. They wanted to observe and experience his rehearsal technique so they could in turn take back what they learned and apply it to their groups.”

Shaw’s technique at the podium and in rehearsal is one thing noted again and again by those who worked under him. Reitzes points to his canny ability to grasp tempo and impart that to his musicians.

“I love qualities of tempo so much,” Shaw once said in an interview with Martin Goldsmith. “Tempo is sort of my first association, and rhythm is my closest personal association, I feel, with music.”

Johnathan Phelps, Reitzes’ predecessor and mentor at WABE, once compared Shaw’s sense of rhythm and tempo to perfect pitch.

“Much of his rehearsal technique with the chorus,” Reitzes explains, “was repetition of rhythmic patterns and sounds associated with them. So I think that the rhythm was sort of the gateway for getting the music …just getting it in your system!”

“After achieving that precision,” she says, “he went to work on the meaning.”

Listening back to Shaw’s recordings, Reitzes says she continues to be astonished at how, as she puts it, “a couple hundred voices sound like one.”

“The man had an ear, obviously,” she asserts.

“I don’t think any other symphonic chorus was ever elevated to the level of prestige that ours is,” Reitzes continues, “alongside the orchestra. Here was Shaw bringing his particular voice … his passion to the symphonic concert hall and saying ‘Having this repertoire is an important part of a symphony orchestra subscription series.’ And I think for the orchestral musicians it was a broadening of repertoire.”

One extraordinary thing to consider about Shaw, in light of his deftness of craft at the podium, was that he had no formal training in classical music.  

Shaw joined the glee club while studying religion and philosophy at Pomona College in the mid-1930s. It was there that he caught the ear of the prominent band leader Fred Waring.

“[Waring] heard one of the concerts with Robert Shaw conducting,” Reitzes says, “and he said ‘I think there’s something extraordinary here,’ and invited him to New York to work with him.”

Reitzes notes that though Shaw was “deeply intellectual,” he remained unpretentious and genuine.

“He simply had this astonishing intellect,” she says. “And though he rejected the organized religion he was brought up with, he was always pondering the spiritual.”

Reitzes points to a particular quote from the conductor in which he said, “For me at least, the arts may provide the day-by-day confirmation of a creator’s hand still at work in the lives and affairs of man.” It is unsurprising, then, to learn that he viewed music as a sacrament and included many sacred works in his repertoire.

Beyond his own search for spirituality inside of the music he helped create, Shaw also sought to use his platform for social justice, there in the South of the late 1960s.

“We’re talking just three years after the Voting Rights Act,” Reitzes recounts, “and here’s a man who, when he was touring with his chorale in the 1940s and ‘50s, had African-American singers in the choir. If there was a hotel that wouldn’t accommodate everyone, they wouldn’t stay.”

Shaw also insisted that tickets to concerts by the Robert Shaw Chorale, the group he founded in 1948, be available “not only to everyone,” Reitzes says, “but the best seats.”

“This inclusiveness,” she says, “I think was a no-brainer for him. And I think it’s emblematic of the way he approached sacred texts. He was bringing people together in the concert hall through this music to transcend whatever they were experiencing.”

That work toward equality was not limited to people of color or even the American South. Shaw brought the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus to Europe in 1988 for a historic concert in East Berlin, about a year before the Berlin Wall came down, to perform Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony.

“Germans know their Beethoven 9^th!” Reitzes says. “This was something different. People were weeping! It was his open gift to all the people of Germany, I think.”

Reitzes herself first met Shaw after being established in her career in Atlanta radio for a few years. She began conducting interviews for the Atlanta Symphony Broadcasts on WABE in 1983. She says that she had heard how tough the conductor could be.

“I knew I couldn’t come across like some dilettante,” she recalls, “so I read and studied and listened a good bit.”

She remembers her first encounter around this time, visiting Shaw for an interview in his home study, “surrounded by scores … and Grammys,” Reitzes remembers.

“I said ‘It’s such a privilege to meet you,’” to which Shaw responded “You sing?” says Reitzes, imitating the conductor’s gruff baritone, “What do you do Monday nights? We need altos.”

“I guess he heard a low voice and thought hmm,” Rietzes laughs, “but I felt very flattered. I was privileged to see him often in a very contemplative setting and when he was relaxed enough to indulge in some humor.”

We will be hearing much more on Robert Shaw in the month to come — from colleagues, singers and other authorities. And we are partnering with ArtsATL and the Atlanta Symphony for this coverage, all of which is leading up to the symphony’s performance at Carnegie Hall on April 30…Shaw’s 100th birthday.

This story is a part of The Shaw 100th initiative, a collaboration between the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, ArtsATL and WABE 90.1FM to provide multifaceted coverage of Robert Shaw’s life and legacy in celebration of what would have been his 100th birthday.