Rio
Rio was composed in November 1993 for a workshop given by the BBC Singers at the Royal Academy of Music. It was subsequently selected by them for performance at the RAM’s ‘Schnittke at 60’ festival in March 1994, following which the work was revised. The premiere performance was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in November 1994, along with an interview with the composer. Rio later secured an honourable mention in the 1995 contemporary choral composition competition administered by the Roger Wagner Center for choral studies, California State University, Los Angeles.
The text was written by A J C Reger, who was the composer’s history teacher at school. It paints a romanticized vision of the city of Rio, before turning to a brief consideration of the dark underside of the city: the slums and starving children. In the final stanza, Reger turns from the specific to the general, using Rio as an example of our tendency to see what we want to see, to focus on the good and ignore the bad. But despite this realisation, he still ‘hope[s] to go to Rio some day before I die’.
The musical material underlies this dichotomy between light and dark. The choir represents the alternating visions of Rio: shifting cluster-like chords and quasi-fanfare figures using approximate pitches alternate with syncopated Latin rhythms and lucid melody. Above these textures, a solo baritone personalises the text. At times, including at the end, the choir falls silent, leaving the soloist alone with his thoughts.
I long to go to Rio some day before I die
To see Christ the Redeemer standing etched against the sky.
I would climb up Corcovado to gaze down on the scene
Of the beaches and the harbours and the buildings in between.
There are girls at Ipanema beautiful beyond compare.
There are palaces and churches built around each tree-lined square;
Mosaic patterns on the sidewalks, azure tiles on every wall,
And the jacarandas spilling violet petals over all.
Every evening as the sun sets cariocas throng the street,
Drinking in the sounds of nightfall, tripping to the samba beat;
Tropic stars and tropic moonlight match the lights along each way,
And the singing and the dancing lasts until the break of day.
But I'll not see the shanty towns which climb each steep hillside.
I will not see the people for whom all hope has died.
I will not hear the crying of the hungry children there,
For I have come to Rio, that jewel beyond compare.
Now all men have their Rio, that picture in the mind
That promises perfection, but tends to make them blind
And fail to see the blemishes that make their scheme a lie.
But I hope to go to Rio some day before I die.
11/20/1994, broadcast of premiere performance on BBC Radio 3
