Royal Albert Hall
Thea
Musgrave: Phoenix Rising (1997)
Brahms:
Ein
deutsches Requiem, op.45
Golda Schultz (soprano)
Johan Reuter (bass-baritone)BBC Symphony Chorus (chorus master: Neil Ferris)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Richard Farnes (conductor)
I am not sure I could find much
of a connection between the two works on offer here. They offered ‘contrast’ of
a sort, I suppose, yet not in a meaningful way such as I could discern. No
matter: the concert was what it was, concluding in a truly excellent
performance of Brahms’s German Requiem,
infinitely preferable to a curiously vacuous one I heard last autumn – perhaps more
the time of year for it – from
starrier forces in Berlin.
First, however, came Thea
Musgrave’s 1997 orchestral work, Phoenix
Rising, its title taken from a sign outside a Virginia coffee shop, its programmatic
subject matter that of, well, a phoenix rising from the ashes. Its opening
éclat promised much, very much a presentiment of the sharpness – rhythmic, yet
not only that – of the rest of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s performance under
Richard Farnes. It could have been the prelude to a stage work; I could not
help but wonder if it might have been better off that way. For the piece’s
initial post-Peter Grimes dramatic
tension dissipated somewhat, transforming in a different way from the phoenix,
into a competent yet hardly earth-shattering tone poem. Unrepentantly tonal, it
came to sound more like film music than a concert work. Visual theatrics, in
which the excellent timpanist cued a bass drum player above, before downing his
sticks and leaving the stage amused and/or puzzled, yet seemed to lack
motivation in to the musical material (other than his ceasing to play for a
while, before being heard at the end, off-stage). It was interesting to hear a
Proms premiere from a composer long overlooked in this country; I doubt I
should hasten to hear it again.
The introduction to the opening
chorus of the Brahms, ‘Selig sing, die da Leid tragen’ – from the Beatitudes,
of course – truly set the scene for the rest of Farnes’s reading. Combining
serenity with a hint of harmonic grit often missed, he pointed to the location
of meaning in Brahms’s harmony. It is all there, pretty much. In the words too,
of course, but one might have a pretty good feeling for what this splendidly
Lutheran humanist – in more than one sense – work was about even without. Or so
one imagined. At any rate, the BBC Symphony Chorus, upon its entry, ensured
that we never had to find out, its rounded tone of consolation just the thing –
as was its diction. The movement remained founded, even grounded, upon its bass
line, orchestral and choral. This was to be a ‘natural’, unaffected performance
of the very best kind.
The following chorus’s roots in
early music – not only Bach and Handel, not only Schütz, but earlier – were
clear at its opening, without any need to underline, to highlight. Once again,
the placing of chords, the path of harmonic progressions, mattered in work and
performance, yet without a hint of pedantry. Soft, which is not to say weak,
foreboding, ‘All flesh is as grass’, grew and grew through the great sarabande processional.
Brahms may not have been a Believer, but he knew what belief and Belief were. The
central section, ‘So seid nun geduldig…’, was taken more swiftly, with greater
contrast, than often one hears; it worked very well indeed, heightening
expectancy in words and music alike. A sense of return, musical as much as
theological, was finely achieved thereafter, with the return of the opening
material, prior to turning of the corner, clean and warm: the Lord’s Word would
endure for ever. Again swifter than usual, the closing section worked
splendidly, the foretelling of heavenly rejoicing almost akin to a choral
climax in Haydn. Farnes shaped this music, as that of the whole, with powerful
yet unobtrusive understanding.
Johan Reuter proved a sincere
soloist, his diction also excellent, in ‘Herr, lehre doch mich’, the chorus
engaged in a dark game, or perhaps better ritual, of versicle and response.
Subtle darkening of instrumental colours as the psalmist reflected upon the
humbreing of his days proved just as telling as the vocal line itself. A swift
closing once again worked; it was not hard-driven, but a release that was again
as much musical as a mere response to the words. Klemperer’s is not the only
way. And yet, all the while, that
pedal point resounded in a way the grand old man would surely have appreciated.
The ensuing chorus, ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen,’ flowed beautifully,
indeed beguilingly, without a hint of sentimentality.
Golda Schultz’s solo work in the
next number, ‘Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit’, offered a near ideal blend of the ‘angelic’
and the ‘womanly’: the ‘Ewig-Weibliche’, one might almost suggest, in Goethian
homage. I was put a little in mind of Edith Mathis (on Daniel Barenboim’s early
recording, although there was perhaps greater range here. Maternal comfort –
the death of Brahms’s mother almost certainly played some role here, just as
the death of Webern’s mother would for so much of his œuvre – was apparent, was
felt, with a nice sense of homage to Mendelssohn, delectable BBC woodwind and
all, towards the close.
I wondered whether Reuter might
have been a little forthright in ‘Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt’,
but perhaps that was as much a matter of the Albert Hall acoustic as
performance. At any rate, choral swallowing up of death and grave in victory
proved a thing of awe, prior to another Haydn-Gloria-close: which, after all,
is precisely what the words from Revelation suggest. This was not difference for
the sake of it, but a keen response both to words and music. The final chorus,
taken more or less attacca,
reinforced the ‘cyclical’ element to Brahms’s vision. That is not quite the
right word, I know, for we have been changed by what has happened in the
meantime; yet tonally, there is – and here there was felt to be – a strong
element of return. Farnes’s ability to maintain the longest of lines came in
very handy here, as did his readily apparent long-term harmonic thinking.
Blessed were these dead souls indeed.
