Music Professor Paul Althouse Celebrates Over Forty Years at Connecticut College

Professor Paul Althouse, Connecticut College’s Director of Choral Activities since 1970, will retire at the end of this semester.  Althouse began conducting choral groups while an undergraduate at Harvard University and went on to found and lead the Yale Bach Society during and after graduate school.  In addition to teaching and conducting, Althouse developed an expert presence in the recording industry as a reviewer of more than 900 major and boutique label recordings, serving for a period as Executive Editor of American Record Guide.  During his tenure at Conn, he conducted most of the major works in the choral literature, including Requiem settings of Mozart, Verdi and Brahms; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; Bach’s St. John Passion and B-minor Mass; and Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Symphony of Psalms, as well as exploring an extensive range of smaller-scale works as director of the Connecticut College Chamber Choir.

He recently sat down with Ben Zacharia ’13, a seven-semester tenor in the Conn Chamber Choir, and Pianist/Adjunct Music Instructor Patrice Newman, to talk about his enduring passion for music, career highlights at Conn, favorite musical works and current cultural riches.

College Voice: How do you compare your views of music in your student years versus how students and young adults today connect with musical trends?

Paul Althouse: There are many more ‘musics’ around now than there were, particularly forms and degrees of popular music.  It used to be easy to categorize popular forms: Tin Pan Alley, jazz, country and western that we called “hillbilly,” rock, of course—which comes in in the mid-50s and was really an extension of the blues.  Now, the landscape is much cloudier. There are lots of very esoteric rock bands, interesting jazz going off in many directions and electronic composition, which crosses over into movies with lots of interesting music. It’s a much more varied landscape.

CV: How do you see ‘classical’ music continuing to fit into the enjoyment of people interested in so many “musics”?

PA: What is loosely called ‘classical music’ has always been a minority sport; maybe engaging three to five percent of populations. I think people still do respond to music that I find dear and important, but maybe not in the same way. Now, ninety-seven percent of what people enjoy is a brave new world of music, media and movies. But the numbers of people really responding to what classical music has to offer are probably about the same.

CV: What inspired you to go into music?

PA: In college, I was going to go into math to become a high school math teacher. Then I took physics and it just about killed me. I was in a very good choir at Harvard, which was the inspiration — the university choir, conducted by a wonderful musician, John Ferris.  He ran an informal conducting class. I guess I did okay because he divided up rehearsals and gave me some of the parts to work.  Then when I was a junior, the Harvard graduate chorale lost its conductor.  These were all Harvard graduate students, so you can imagine what a bunch of jerks they were.  But they needed a conductor, so I said, “Oh, yeah, I’ll do it.” I thought I could do anything.  During the first concert, we had to start some Bach over because the harpsichordist, who was a friend of mine, started in the wrong meter… it was very embarrassing.  Then John Ferris, who was also the conductor of the Harvard summer school chorus, hired me as assistant conductor.

CV: Have the ways you interact with choirs changed in the last few decades?

PA: I think I’m better than I was twenty years ago. I’m a better listener and better conductor. In terms of interacting with singers, I don’t think you can fake it; you kind of are what you are.  If you aren’t the right person for the job…it’s obvious.

CV: There used to be more music classes offered at Conn. Any you particularly loved to teach?

PA: Oh, all of my classes were like that! I used to teach the analysis classes and I really did enjoy that because I found that I had a lot of discoveries to make as well.  There are a lot of really neat things in the pieces that we looked at.  We started with chant and it became a reprise of music history. We started in the Middle Ages and would analyze Bach, etc. That was really the course that was the most exciting. Counterpoint was close. I loved teaching counterpoint. The hard thing about counterpoint was trying to make the right kinds of suggestions to student work.  That could be very hard to do; in analysis you don’t have to do that.

CV: What were the musical highlights of your career at Conn?

PA: Doing the [Bach] St. John Passion in 1985 was really great, the Beethoven 9th, the Stravinsky Mass. The Brahms ‘Fest- und Gedenksprüche’ [Festive and Memorial Verses] was a piece I always, always, always wanted to do and did with the Chamber Choir a couple of years ago.  Earlier, we also did [Stravinsky’s] “Les Noces” with Robert Craft conducting the concert.  I prepared the choir and orchestra. Elliot Carter was in the audience. Gregg Smith [Robert Craft’s long-time assistant] set the whole thing up. He came up to me when it was over and said, “What are you doing in New London?”

CV: Any composers you wish you could have included in your final Conn concert?

PA: Schubert, but Schubert writes so little for chorus. He had such a command of harmony, and of course the melodic gift is there, too. Some of Schubert’s pieces just seem like they tell the whole world. They’re sort of cosmic. I mean, it’s all there, but it’s hard to get to because the music is kind of simple. It’s sort of simple on the surface, but, you know, he says everything Mahler says without the bombast.

CV: Are there any moments in your musical career where you had a revelation, like you just sat back and said, “Wow, this is really amazing.”

PA: A transcendent experience? Yes, that happens, and I think it’s probably not a good thing when it happens. You sort of lose control over what you’re doing, and it gets a little bit too exciting. If you’re on a podium, you start to think, “Maybe I’m going to fall off…” But there are some moments when thoughts flash through your head where things just couldn’t be any more beautiful than they are right now.  There were some in the last Chamber Choir concert — in the Vaughan Williams. And some of the Schütz seemed so right there.