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Back in the late 1980s, music lovers worldwide were saving their pennies for an exciting new recording: George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess with Simon Rattle and the London Philharmonic on EMI. Note-complete and based on Rattle’s recent production of the opera at the Glyndebourne Festival, this was the first digitally recorded Porgy, and a sonic wonder. One of its great delights is heard in opera’s first few minutes, as the pianist character Jasbo Brown riffs on the overture’s themes for an extended period. Often severely truncated, the segment was given complete, and the virtuosic, improvisatory interlude sets the tone of the piece to perfection. You want to hit “repeat” and hear it over and over.
The Jasbo was British conductor, keyboardist and composer Wayne Marshall, then on the brink of what has become a dazzling international career. Marshall is one of contemporary classical music’s most interesting figures, whose musicianship has brought him to venues all over the world. His recorded output reveals an astonishing breadth of activity, ranging from standard classical organ repertory to music of Bach, Liszt, Brahms and the entire Gershwin piano canon. He has conducted the operas of Jake Heggie and John Harbison, premiered James MacMillan’s organ concerto A Scotch Bestiary (2004) and held conducting posts with the WDR Funkhausorchester and Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi.
Despite his beginnings in more orthodox rep, the British-born, British-trained Marshall has primarily made his name as a supreme interpreter of American music. Ravinia will hear him on Aug. 3 in a suite from Porgy, as well as in the music of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “For me, your American music is just as important as any Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Brahms or whatever. It’s the same to me,” Marshall said. “It’s not to be taken lightly. Porgy and Bess is a phenomenally difficult score. Yes, Gershwin wrote some light stuff, but some very serious stuff as well. And the music is not easy.”
Marshall was born in Oldham, Lancashire, to parents from Barbados. His family, including his two sisters, was very musical. As a child, he was thrilled by the sound of the organ at church. “Church music was the bedrock of our musical education and upbringing,” he said. By age 3, he was beginning to play by ear the music he heard at church. More remarkably, he began to improvise on the music to create compositions of his own.
When he was 8 years old, Marshall heard Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. “It was a revelation. I had never heard anything like it. I was fascinated by the sounds and colors and rhythm, by this harmonic language of George Gershwin,” he said. “It was so amazing for me. I managed to persuade my parents to get the score and a recording. I listened to it for hours and became obsessed with this sound world. That led to my discovery of the Piano Concerto in F and other works. Likewise with Leonard Bernstein. It was just amazing to hear that music. These two composers added a very interesting foundation to my musical knowledge.”
“Your American music is just as important as any Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Brahms or whatever. It’s the same to me. It’s not to be taken lightly.” — Wayne Marshall
Marshall’s future in American repertory was sealed with that pivotal Porgy at Glyndebourne. “Back in ’86, my sister went down to Glyndebourne for an audition and asked me to play for her. They were also looking for someone to play Jasbo Brown. Simon Rattle gave me a half hour to go through the music and asked me to play it. I was accepted for the role, and I was also brought on as one of the répétiteurs. It was a real voyage of discovery because I had never worked in an opera house before. They had an all-Black cast and chorus, which was quite unheard of at that time.
“When it came to the performances, my job was finished after the first six or seven minutes of the show, so I just popped down to the pit and watched Simon conduct every night. It was fantastic. Then came the recording. And that was it for me. Before then, my career was headed in a cathedral organist, recitalist direction, but the whole Glyndebourne experience was a complete gearshift. It opened the doors of my real music world.”
Although Marshall is known as a precise and polished musician, his natural spontaneity has guided him throughout his career. “I began with playing by ear, and in many ways, that’s how I still look at music. I read music, of course, but the ear is what tells us what it’s all about. A lot of musicians nowadays don’t really have that opportunity to just play their instrument. As a conductor, this is always a challenge, to get an orchestra to look beyond what they see in front of them. I constantly shout out, ‘Don’t read it, feel it.’ ”
Ravinia will hear Marshall improvise on a Stephen Sondheim song this summer, in a program that also features Robert Russell Bennett’s stunning Gershwin suite Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, as well as his Candide overture and the Divertimento for Orchestra. Some may be curious about Marshall’s political thoughts on Porgy and West Side, as they are both pieces filled with racial strife, written by white men. He really prefers to let the music speak for itself. “I’ve never been too much into this. We were brought up to believe that we are all the same. We are what we are.
“I am very much looking forward to performing with the Chicago Symphony and being at Ravinia. I was to have made my debut in 2020 with Bernstein’s White House Cantata, but of course that had to be postponed. I am so happy to be coming now, with some very different music. It is music that is a joy to conduct. It has been a continuing journey with this music.”
Excerpted with permission from Ravinia Magazine.
