David Randolph
December 21, 2010 | by Oliver Sacks
As Christmas approaches, the churches and concert halls of New York are filled with various renderings of Handel’s Messiah. But one Messiah, perhaps the most iconic of all, which filled the air last year and each year for the forty-five years before it, has gone.
David Randolph conducted his St. Cecilia Chorus’s version of the Messiah at Carnegie Hall every year since 1965. His own birthday was Christmas Eve, and last December 24, as he celebrated his ninety-fifth, he was as full of physical and creative energy as ever. He would bound to the podium with the spring of someone a quarter his age, take a bow, and then turn to the audience, speaking in his deep, melodious baritone, to introduce the singers, players, and their instruments, and the main themes of the Messiah. His passion for the every aspect of the music was evident. He often gave historical glosses on a particular instrument or musical theme, and he never omitted to say that Handel drew much of his most beloved “religious” music from the bawdy Italian love songs of his time. There was no such thing as “religious” music, Randolph felt, any more than there was “military” music or “love” music; there was only music put to different uses, in different contexts. This was a point which he brought out with great eloquence in his beautiful book, This Is Music: A Guide to the Pleasure of Listening, and he would often mention it before a performance of his annual Christmas Oratorio or the great Passions he conducted at Easter. He would mention it, too, when conducting his favorite Requiem Masses by Brahms, Verdi, or Berlioz—all of whom, he would remind the audience, were atheists (as he himself was). The religious imagination, he felt, was a most precious part of the human spirit, but he was convinced that it did not require particular religious beliefs, or indeed any religious belief. (Jonathan Miller, in directing his wonderful Matthew Passion at BAM, often makes the same point.)
Randolph was greatly gifted verbally as well as musically, and he was a man of a most loving and generous nature, combining the gravitas and wisdom of age with the openness and spontaneity of youth—combining, as creativity must, both experience and innocence. He died last May, leaving a void that no one can fill.
But his St. Cecilia Chorus (named for the patron saint of music) fathered by him for forty-five years and, orphaned by his death, will continue to perform under other conductors. They are dedicating their 2010–11 concert season to David Randolph, a season that opens with Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at Carnegie Hall on December 23. Some of us who knew David well can hardly bear the idea of a Christmas Oratorio or a Messiah without him, but he would never have allowed such sentimentality. Performers and conductors come and go, but the music is always there, and it is certain that the St. Cecilia Chorus will bear the stamp of nearly a half-century with David Randolph for a very long time.
Oliver Sacks is a practicing physician and the author of ten books, including The Mind’s Eye, Musicophilia, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, An Anthropologist on Mars, and Awakenings (which inspired the Oscar-nominated film). He lives in New York City, where he is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and the first Columbia University Artist.
Judith | December 21, 2010 at 2:57 pm
The scrupulous, loving, enveloping attention David gave to Messiah he also extended to those of us lucky enough to sing with The St. Cecilia Chorus,and lucky enough to be in the same room with David Randolph.
-Judy Buck
Jo Ann Reierson | December 22, 2010 at 2:35 am
This was a most eloquent tribute. Thank you.
Lynn Martin | December 22, 2010 at 11:45 am
This astute and heartfelt tribute to David Randolph put tears in my eyes. Thank you, Dr. Sacks. I am one of the orphaned St. Cecilians and proud to be a member of this organization, going forward despite the crushing loss of our beloved father.
charlotte waxman | December 22, 2010 at 12:37 pm
I am a cousin of Mildred Randolph, who admired David for the many years we were family. As much success as he achieved, and the recognition he enjoyed (modestly, but truly), was also due to the support from those with whom he worked. No one succeeds completely on his own, and the value of his association with the wonderful artists, musicians, friends and supporters were essential facets of his success and happiness. And no one was more happy in his endeavors than David Randolph. And it showed!!!
Roberta M. Eisenberg | December 22, 2010 at 10:21 pm
There is no replacing David. I have sung with him in St Cecilia since 1977 and learned from him too much to recount. There is a hole inside me, especially at every rehearsal when I think about singing without him.
Tomorrow night will be especially difficult for me when we sing the Bach “Christmas Oratorio” because it is the first thing I ever sang in Carnegie Hall with the chorus and because this will be my first concert since he died.
Recalling David, it is hard not to remember his loving wife, Mildred, as well. If as Dr Sacks says, David was our father, then certainly Mildred who died not too long before David, was our mother.
In both their memories, I am determined that we will give a performance to honor him and her.
N.B. In ¶2, it is not correct that St C performed Messiah since 1965. David’s Messiah performances were with the Masterwork Chorus of NJ. St C Chorus never did it in order not to conflict with this other chorus he conducted. That is, not until David semi-retired from his other chorus commitments and kept only St C, which first performed it on Dec 23, 1995. (cf.http://www.stceciliachorus.org/chorus/repertoire.shtml)
In the same ¶, the author says that David last conducted Messiah in 2009, but it was actually 2008. In Dec 2009, St C performed Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor.
Laurence Glavin | December 23, 2010 at 2:34 pm
“Ein Deutsches Requiem” by Brahms is NOT a setting of the Roman Catholic Mass of the Dead, but can be described as “sacred” but “non-liturgical”. The “Requiems” of Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi and Faure are liturgical.
Cynthia C. Hildt | January 12, 2011 at 11:57 am
Both David Randolph and his loving wife, Milldred, are indeed missed by those of us who knew and loved them. To sing with David was to really understand the music as he hears it and knows it. What a learning process! I have been unable to sing with St. Cecilia for the past few years because of a disability which keeps me from attending the rehearsals. But I hope that will change, as I am sure that those rehearsals will help in the missing of these two dear friends. Thank you, Dr. Sacks. It is clear that you knew our beloved David well.
Joan Lengsfelder | January 28, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Sang with St. CECILIA for 30 years, starting in 1975. Rehearsals & concerts were a large part of my life. David was able to draw from his chorus the most beautiful sounds & to communicate his sensitivity to us all.
Stanley Rosenberg | February 19, 2011 at 6:37 pm
I am David’s brother. (I just reentered circulation; I had an operation on a strangulated hernia and its complications).
I also want to add my “Thank you”
to Dr. Sachs for an empathetic review of David’s musical life.
David was a close friend besides being a sibling. I cannot emphasize too much how swell a brother he was!
Thank you again!