A stunning opening to the Bach Choir’s 150th anniversary season in the most dramatic of settings
How do you open the 150th anniversary season of one of Britain’s finest choirs? An announcement from an official at St Paul’s Cathedral welcomed us to the site of Christian worship for the last 1400 years. The current building was consecrated over 300 years ago. We were promised ‘an evening of immense drama’, and the cathedral added to the music’s drama, in both sight and sound.
The Bach Choir could have returned to Bach’s Mass in B Minor (so memorably conducted by the Choir’s conductor, David Hill, in Manchester recently). This would have been apt as the Choir did the first performance of that work in Britain. Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius would also have been suitable for the Choir and the building, but they did perform it not long ago at The Royal Festival Hall. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (the Choral Symphony) is magnificent, but the choir only comes in at the end. Perhaps Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis? Some would argue that choral writing wasn’t Beethoven’s strongest suit – it’s certainly demanding, although that wouldn’t have been a problem for a choir of this quality. Requiems by Duruflé and Fauré are too delicate for such a momentous occasion. Requiems by Mozart and Verdi would probably have been better suited, particularly the latter, due to its operatic scale. The Choir decided on an even more operatic piece, Mahler’s SymphonyNo. 8, subtitled the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ (although not by the composer himself) due to the immense number of choral and orchestral forces and soloists involved. Remarkably, the Choir had already existed for over 40 years when the symphony premiered in 1910.
Mahler’s epic work was written for double choir, children’s choir (originally a boys’ choir), eight soloists, large orchestra and organ. St Paul’s Cathedral has a suitably impressive acoustic. One study by academics at The City University in London found that it has a reverberation time of up to 11 seconds at specific frequencies when empty, or around eight seconds when full. This compares to around 2.3 seconds for a modern concert hall like Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.
From our seats about half way down the Nave, the effect of the cathedral’s incredible acoustics on the music in the opening Veni Creator Spiritus was almost overwhelming. This section of the piece is Mahler’s musical invocation of the creative spirit, set to the words of the Pentecostal hymn (see box below). A great ocean of sound surrounded us, lapping around the great pillars of the cathedral. Changes in harmony and orchestral colour, beautifully controlled by David Hill, stood out like the peaks of great waves. The strings were sweet-toned in the acoustic, and the pinpoint accuracy of the players was still evident. At times, it felt like a vision in a dream, with great swathes of sound like the ‘rushing mighty wind’ that came upon the Apostles at Pentecost filling ‘all the house.’ The Choir ranged from ecstatic, life-affirming singing to a subtle sotto voce. The children’s choir were superb in the Gloria. The solo voices created operatic scenes as if they were from a Wagner opera. The overall effect was of a terrible beauty, formidably joyful music-making.
The Pentecostal Hymn
The Pentecostal hymn Veni Creator Spiritu, with a Latin text text probably by Rabanus Maurus Magnentius, a Bendictine monk who became archbishop of Mainz in the ninth century invokes the Creator Spirit. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, Mary, and other followers of Jesus in Jerusalem. An English translation by John Cosin became a popular hymn, ‘Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire/ and lighten with celestial fire.’
Pentecost by Jean Restout the Younger (1692 – 1868). Source: Wikimedia Commons
“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.“King James Bible Acts II Chapter II Verses 1 – 4
Part IIThe Death and Redemption of Faust
The second part of the symphony is taken from the final scene of Goethe’s Faust, in which the protagonist’s soul travels on a journey to redemption. The opening captures the moment when Faust’s soul is rescued from Mephistopheles as he falls to his death. Mahler’s symphony has apparently never been staged, but it creates an operatic scene in the listener’s imagination. The composer even provides stage directions, describing the anchorites (hermits) who dwell ‘among clefts in the rocks’ amongst ‘mountain ravines, forests, cliffs and wilderness.’ He later describes various characters ‘soaring up and down’, ‘in a deep region’ or ‘soaring in the higher atmosphere.’
The opening orchestral section richly evoked the landscape, a spellbinding depiction of the operatic scene, beautifully controlled by Hill. It settled into a gentle chorale, with shimmering strings. There were romantic, sweeping melodies with an element of yearning like those in Wagner’s Parsifal. Hill also brought out the almost atonal clashes of harmony, showing that Mahler was on the cusp of the revolution in classical music in the 20th century, but also harking back to the Romanticism of the 19th century.
The Choir continued to create a theatre of the mind, their staccato perfectly matching that of the strings. It was easy to imagine them as massed ranks of ardent anchorites. Their singing was beautifully controlled, with superb dynamics in the more legato sections. As Pater Ecstaticus, Josef Jeongmeen Ahn sang with a rich, warm-voiced baritone, with burnished high notes. As the Earth-bound Pater Profundis, Derek Welton sang with a deep, rough-hewn bass tone, but with great warmth as well. April Fredrik (Magna Peccatrix) sang with a lovely, pure voice, Hanna Hipp (Mulier Samaritana) was warm-voiced and passionate, and Zoë Jackson (Una poenitentium) was robustly Wagnerian, stunningly powerful. Hayley Meth as Maria Aegyptiaca was lighter-toned than the other women, with gorgeous, florid singing. The highlight amongst the excellent soloists was the tenor Brenden Gunnell as Dr Marianus. His voice had something of the tone of the great Welsh tenor Robert Tear, golden and passionate.
There was a coup de théâtre when soprano Caroline Bourg appeared unexpectedly in the middle of the choir, singing very softly as Mater Gloriosa. All the forces combined in the final Chorus Mysticus, one of the most transcendent pieces of music in the Western canon. In this performance, superbly executed, it was a moment of pure joy, ineffable in its transcendence. The audience burst into ecstatic applause with a standing ovation. This was the perfect way to celebrate the Choir’s anniversary. The occasion will reverberate in the memory for a long time.
Repertoire Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major
Performers Philharmonia Orchestra The Bach Choir London Youth Choir Cambiata Girls’ Choir David Hill conductor
April Fredrick Soprano 1 / Magna Peccatrix Zoë Jackson Soprano 2 / Una poenitentium Caroline Bourg Soprano 3 / Mater Gloriosa Hanna Hipp Alto 1 / Mulier Samaritana Hayley Meth Alto 2 / Maria Aegyptiaca Brenden Gunnell Tenor / Dr Marianus Josef Jeongmeen Ahn Baritone / Pater Ecstaticus Derek Welton Bass / Pater Profundus
Sources Lewers, T. H. and Anderson, J. S., Some acoustical properties of St Paul’s Cathedral, London (Journal of Sound and Vibration, Volume 92, Issue 2, p. 285-297, January 1984) Cox, T., Measuring the acoustics of the Bridgewater Hall (The Sound Blog 10 October 2013)
Correction
This post was updated on Monday 13 October 2025 at 19.34 BST to correct the reference to the paper by Lewers, T. H. and Anderson, J. S., which referred to ‘Academics at Harvard’. This has been changed to The City University (London).
Last year marked the 30th anniversary of the death of my father, John Charles Holmes, under whose benign and loving influence I developed a lifelong passion for music. He was the choirmaster and organist of the local church choir. I joined his choir at the age of six and went on to sing with several ensembles, including the choirs of Exeter and Worcester Colleges in Oxford, the BBC Symphony Chorus, the Hallé Choir and the John Powell Singers. Whenever I visit an English cathedral city, I always try to go to choral evensong, which remains part of the great choral tradition that has produced many great classical singers. Although it’s a while since I sang in public, I still appreciate choral music and several highlights of 2024 featured choirs.
I was honoured to be invited to review concerts by the superb Philharmonia Orchestra in London. I enjoyed Elgar’s choral masterpiece, The Dream of Gerontius, with a premiere of a wonderfully evocative new piece, Cusp, by the baritone and composer Roderick Williams, which describes end-of-life experiences in a powerful libretto by Rommi Smith. Another moving libretto, with war poems by Wilfred Owen, featured in another stunning concert by the Philharmonia with The Bach Choir in Britten’s War Requiem. The orchestra joined forces with Garsington Opera for a joyful, semi-staged performance of another Britten piece, his opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream conducted by Douglas Boyd at the BBC Proms.
The Bach Choir and the Philharmonia. Image credit Andy Paradise
David Hill conducted both of the concerts by the Bach Choir. He appeared at Manchester’s Stoller Hall in another guise as conductor of Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the young student forces of Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415, who brought joy and precision to a performance which seemed to reveal Bach’s soul in all its intellectual and spiritual glory. That weekend was very special for music-making in Manchester, as the previous day was the end of an era as Sir Mark Elder ended his tenure as Hallé Music Director, a position he held for nearly a quarter of a century. His final concert included the European premiere of James MacMillan‘s splendid new choral piece Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia, a performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, and a passionate, moving speech by Sir Mark. He is replaced by new Principal Conductor Kahchun Wong from Singapore, who I have only seen once so far, conducting a lively Rush Hour Concert in October in Tan Dun’s Violin Concerto: Fire Ritual and Stravinsky’s Firebird: Suite. He seems to be a bright prospect with an engaging stage presence.
I made two choral discoveries in Manchester in 2024. Firstly, The Apex Singers, a Manchester-based chamber choir of eight voices, founded and directed by Ollie Lambert, who directs this young choir remotely in his stunning folk song arrangements. Then Kantos Chamber Choir, under their conductor Ellie Slorach, brought Behold The Sea, a bold and innovative programme of maritime music to the Stoller Hall. I also discovered the fascinatingly intense music of Tim Benjamin, whose evocative pieces The Seafarer and The Wanderer were beautifully recorded by Kantos Chamber Choir.
Manchester Collective and SANSARA in Rothko Chapel
There were more fantastic chamber music performances from Manchester Collective, who I have seen perform live probably eight or ten times in the last few years, at all sizes and shapes of venues from Salford’s White Hotel to the RNCM, the Stoller Hall, the Bridgewater Hall and even the Royal Albert Hall. The Collective makes choosing to go to one of their concerts an easy decision, as it’s guaranteed there will be high-quality music-making, inspired programming and fascinating collaborations. I saw them twice in 2024, first in the uplifting Rothko Chapel with SANSARA chamber choir at the Bridgewater Hall, then in Sirocco with the force of nature that is the cellist Abel Selaocoe at the Stoller Hall. Both concerts brought deep, life-affirming joy across time and genres.
I spent the August Bank Holiday weekend in the charming market town Southwell in the heart of Nottinghamshire, enjoying the delights of the tenth annual Southwell Music Festival directed by the indefatigable baritone and conductor Marcus Farnsworth. There was supreme artistry in all the concerts, not least from the artist in residence, Mark Padmore, whose word painting in his Recital of English Song with pianist Libby Burgess was astonishing. There was new music from Martin Bussey and Gemma Bass and a world premiere of With What Sudden Joy by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, with a text compiled by the poet Kate Wakeling from words of local people in Southwell about the power and effect of music.
The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra were on excellent form as well in 2024. Early in the year, under conductor Nicholas Kraemer they were joined by Manchester Chamber Choir in a moving and dramatic interpretation of Bach’s St John Passion, 300 years after the first performance. In the Proms the orchestra under John Storgårds (Chief Conductor) played a searing version of Shostakovich’s fourth symphony, and Cassandra Miller‘s viola concerto I cannot love without trembling with Lawrence Power a remarkable soloist. The next evening, they performed Messiaen’s remarkable Turangalîla-Symphonie with pianist an Steven Osborne an energetic and compelling piano soloist. Osborne was stunning in another Messiaen work, Des canyons aux étoiles… with conductor Ludovic Morlot and outstanding solo contributions from Martin Owen (horn), Paul Patrick (xylorimba) and Tim Williams (glockenspiel) in a concert that also featured a lively wind machine and an instrument invented by the composer himself, the geophone.
The BBC Philharmonic also shone in two themed concerts. In Mischief and Magic, the orchestra under John Storgårds played one of the best live performances of Stravinsky’s Petrushka I have ever heard, and veteran Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger brought incredible virtuosity and great charm to Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto and Betsy Jolas’ Onze Lieder, and a warm arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides, Now. In A Hero’s Life the orchestra under Alpesh Chauhan celebrated the human spirit with: Richard Strauss’ description of a heroic life; Alban Gerhardt‘s fiercely dedicated performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2; and the UK premiere of This Moment by Anna Clyne, inspired by Buddhist writings and Mozart.
Peter Kirk as Lysander, Siân Griffiths as Hermia, Camilla Harris as Helena and James Newby as Demetrius in Opera North’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo credit: Richard H Smith
Not content with one production of Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the year brought a second one, this time a fully-staged version by Opera North. It was fascinating to compare the production with the Garsington/Philharmonia version a month earlier at the Proms. The most striking difference was the role of Oberon, played in Leeds by countertenor James Laing. He played the character in the more imperious style of James Bowman in Peter Hall’s Glyndebourne production from the early 1980s, rather than the more troubled, argumentative character played by Iestyn Davies in the Garsington version. Opera North also revived Mozart’s Magic Flute, starring Emyr Wyn Jones as a very human Papageno. The lovely, warm rich tones of his voice matched the warmth of his personality.
Musical polymath Nitin Sawhney – producer, performer, and composer – joined the Hallé Orchestra for The Hallé and Nitin Sawhney in Concert. Last year wasn’t a good year for Sawhney – in early March, he announced that ‘out of nowhere’ he had suffered a heart attack.
ComposerNitin Sawhney in conversation with broadcaster Nikki Bedi. Image credit: Hallé/David Hughes
Sawhney turned this experience into a new work for orchestra, Heart Suite. In this highly descriptive and powerful new piece, Sawhney drew on his vast experience as a film composer, taking us on a vivid, moving and immersive journey. On a personal note, I hope you will forgive me for quoting his lovely response on the new social network Bluesky to my review of the concert:
Finally,I would like to thank all my readers for sharing my musical journey in 2024. I hope you will join me again for more adventures in 2025.
“My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity… All a poet can do today is warn.”
Preface to Wilfred Owen’ s Poems (1920), quoted by Britten on the title page of the score
Benjamin Britten’s classic recording of his War Requiem of 1962 was released by Decca in 1963 and has just been re-released in high definition/Dolby Atomos versions. The adult chorus on that version were the Bach Choir, who sang in last Wednesday evening’s superb concert at Westminster Cathedral in London.
In December 1963, Britten wrote in a letter to The Times that he had written the piece, ‘for a big reverberant acoustic, and that is where it sounds best.’ Westminster Cathedral was an appropriate setting; there was sufficient room for the performers to be separated according to Britten’s wishes. The small chamber orchestra that accompanied the two male soloists in settings of Wilfred Owen’s war poems were at the front, very near conductor David Hill. The soprano soloist, Elizabeth Watts was placed, symbolically, in the pulpit so that her liturgical incantations soared above the audience. The main orchestra and adult choir were in the middle, presenting excerpts from the Latin Mass in dramatic, often operatic style. Behind them, and completely hidden in the Apse (East End) of the Cathedral were the boys’ choirs and chamber organ, delivering plainsong-like excerpts from the Requiem Mass.
When the War Requiem was premiered, it was only 17 years from the end of World War II. And World War I, which took place over a century ago now, had ended just 44 years earlier. Britten wrote the solo parts for the German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the English tenor Peter Pears and the Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, to represent the reconciliation of nations that fought in WW II. According to the bitter sarcasm of Owen’s The Next War (used in the ‘Dies Irae’), ‘better men would come/ And greater wars’ would come after WWI, which was described at the time as the war to end all wars. In context, the ‘greater wars’ included WWII, but since that war ended there have been at least 25 conflicts according to the Imperial War Museum website, so the casting of soloists from three of the WWII countries has become less relevant with time. Last week, all the soloists were English – Elizabeth Watts (soprano), Andrew Staples (tenor) and Mark Stone (baritone). Ironically, Vishnevskaya wasn’t allowed by the Soviet authorities to perform at the premiere in 1962, although they did allow her to take part in his recording in January 1963. She was replaced by the British soprano Heather Harper.
Requiem Aeternam
The work began with the first statement of the Latin Requiem Mass, with bells that were so much like church bells that they could have been sounding the half hour in the cathedral itself. The precision and intensity of the adult choir was evident as they sang the opening ‘Requiem Aeternam’, marked pp (very soft) in the score. The Bach Choir’s attention to dynamics, under conductor David Hill, was stunning, rising to forte (loud) on the words ‘ex lux perpetua luceat eis’ (let everlasting light shine upon them] and down to pppp (incredibly soft) at the end of the movement.
This was the first opportunity to hear the boys’ choir, made up of the London Youth Junior Boys & Cambiata Boys Choirs, hidden from the audience until they appeared at the end of the concert for well-deserved applause, when it became apparent just how young some of them were. Their contribution throughout was robust and enthusiastic; they clearly relished Britten’s writing for children’s voices (see also the writing for the fairies in the recent Opera North production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream).
The movement also featured the first Owen poem, Anthem for Doomed Youth, sung by tenor Andrew Staples, who engaged the audience with his precise diction, sometimes sounding like the great Peter Pears, as in the moving final words, ‘And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.’ He was accompanied by a chamber orchestra of 12 players to the right of David Hill, who conducted the main orchestra and choir as well; in the premiere, Britten confined himself to conducting the chamber orchestra and the male soloists, leaving the rest to Meredith Davies.
Hill brought out the detail and intensity of the word-painting in the writing for chamber orchestra, with limpid textures, in what Katherine Richman in her programme note described as ‘a much more stark, often virtuoso, style’ than the deliberately more convention style of much of the writing for choir and main orchestra.
The movement ended with the choir singing the ‘Kyrie Eleison’ [lord have mercy upon us], using the ambiguous and unsettling tritone interval on the notes C and F#, with gorgeous waves of sound, perfectly balanced. The resolution from the anguished F# to the final, consonant chord of F major was spellbinding.
Dies Irae
The ‘Dies Irae’ was the longest movement at nearly half an hour. It began with an operatic chorus, Britten drawing on all his experience as a composer of ten operas by the time he wrote the War Requiem. There were strong parallels with Verdi’s Requiem, first performed in 1874, described by the German conductor Hans von Bülow as, ‘Verdi’s latest opera, in ecclesiastical dress.’ Mervyn Cooke wrote that Britten’s interest in the Requiem text,
“…sprang more from an awareness of its dramatic possibilities than from a keen interest in liturgical observance… [Britten’s] musical response to the Latin words bears all the hallmarks of the sophisticated musico-dramatic techniques he had developed as a composer of stage works.”
The opening featured superb articulation from the Bach Choir, rhythmic precision and intense concentration, evident on the singers’ faces. Joined by a rumbling bass drum, and splendid brass fanfares, the spatial effect in the Cathedral’s acoustic was formidable. Although there was bitter irony in the way Britten juxtaposed the Latin texts of organised religion with the English language texts, the effect of the music for the chorus was excitingly visceral, making the contrast even more bleak. Soprano Elizabeth Watts joined this movement, her voice soaring from the pulpit above the nave of the Cathedral. Her delivery was less histrionic than that of Vishnevskaya in Britten’s recording, but her voice was still declamatory and oracular, bringing out the full irony of the Latin text. Her majestic performance throughout the work was extraordinary.
In contrast, baritone Mark Stone, heard here first in ‘Bugles sang‘, had a rich, warm, expressive voice, gentle, sparing in vibrato, with a bass timbre, sounding very human. There was perfect ensemble in his duet with tenor Andrew Staples on ‘Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to death’, stressing the camaraderie between soldiers from both sides in WWI. As the English poet and composer Ivor Gurney wrote,
“In the mind of all the English soldiers I have met there is absolutely no hate for the Germans, but a kind of brotherly though slightly contemptuous kindness – as to men who are going through a bad time as well as themselves.”
Letter from Ivor Gurney to Marion Scott 17 February 1917
The men of the choir were superbly drilled, singing as one voice in ‘Confutatis maledictis’ [when the damned are cast away], leading to the terrifying description of a ‘Great gun towering toward Heaven’, sung with superbly robust tone and diction by Mark Stone. A horrifyingly dramatic climactic return of the ‘Dies Irae’ theme led to a beautifully fragile rendition of Owen’s poem, Futility by Andrew Staples, and the choir’s intensely moving plea for eternal rest for the dead.
Offertorium
The ‘Offertorium’ is another deeply ironic juxtaposition of Latin text from the Requiem Mass with an Owen poem, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young. The Latin text promises that the Archangel Michael will bring the souls of the dead, ‘in lucem sanctam’ [into holy light], as God promised to ‘Abraham and his seed’. Owen’s poem is a shocking reversal of the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. Rather than Abraham sacrificing a Ram as in the Biblical account, he instead sacrifices his son Isaac, and so slaughters half of the future generations, ‘half the seed of Europe, one by one.’
The boys’ choir began with a passionate prayer for delivery of the souls of the faithful ‘de poenis inferni’ [from the pains of hell]. Another Verdian sequence, operatically sung by the main choir led to a huge climax describing God’s promise to Abraham. The two male soloists took up Owen’s version of the story in a sweet-toned duet, with divine intervention brought by an angel calling Abraham from heaven to spare his son and sacrifice the ram instead. In Britten’s devastating coup de théâtre, the male soloists described the death of ‘half the seed of Europe’, whilst from afar the boys’ voices continued to offer ‘hostias et preces’ [sacrifices and prayers] to God in return for His promise to Abraham.
Britten and Owen
Britten wrote the War Requiem to celebrate the re-consecration of Canterbury Cathedral in May 1962. The Cathedral had been bombed during WWII and, poignantly, the new Cathedral was built next to the ruins of the old.
Britten’s piece also combined old and new elements, the Latin text of the Roman Catholic Missa Pro Defunctis (Mass for the Dead) and poems from the WWI poet Wilfred Owen.
Britten was 25 and his partner Peter Pears was 29 when WWII broke out. All males between the ages of 18 and 41 were conscripted to fight in the war. Britten and Pears spent the early part of the war in North America, for several reasons including their conscientious objection to the war, but returned to England in 1942 to face tribunals exempting them from service. Pears was granted immediate exemption and Britten was successful on appeal.
It’s fascinating to compare Owen’s view of war. It’s easy to assume from his poetry that he must also have been a conscientious objector, but in fact he volunteered to fight and indeed was killed in the war. As Mervyn Cooke wrote in his book Britten War Requiem,
“Such is the emotive power of Owen’s anti-war poetry that it has become necessary to remind ourselves that he was not conscripted.”
Cooke illustrates in detail the progress of Owen’s battle with his conscience. In late 1914 he wrote The Ballad of Peace and War in which he said that ‘peace was passing sweet’, but ‘sweeter still and far more meet/To die in war for brothers’, a huge contrast to the later – and much more famous – poem Dulce et Decorum Est (written in 1917/18) which overturned the ‘old lie’ that it’s sweet and fitting to fight for one’s country. In late 1914 he wrote to his mother saying, ‘my life [as a poet] is worth more than my death to Englishmen’, ending with the anguished request, ‘Write immediately what I am to do.’ Six months later he wrote again saying, ‘I nowdo most intensely want to fight.’
Owen joined the Artists’ Rifles in October 1915 and the Manchester Regiment in June 1916, and in January 1917 he became a Second lieutenant in that regiment. He suffered concussion and ‘shell shock’, spending several months rehabilitating in Craiglockhart War Hospital, where he met another WWI poet, Siegfried Sassoon. He died in battle on 4 November 1918, only a week before the war ended.
Sanctus
There was more theatre, again superbly executed, in the ‘Sanctus’. Soprano Elizabeth Watts shone in the opening declamations, ‘Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus’ [Holy, holy, holy] and there was an astonishing moment when the choir built up to a remarkable climax, ‘freely chanting’ (as the score says) the words ‘Pleni sunt ceoli et terra gloria tua’ [Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.] This passage can be difficult to bring off, but the Bach handled it beautifully. Later in this section, Watts exhibited a warm, rich lower range, before soaring again to operatic high notes.
Mark Stone returned with a climax of a different kind, The End, Owen’s rumination on the horrors of WWI, which will never be assuaged. The formidable music for choir and orchestra was followed by the inward-looking intensity of the poetry, which Stone sang with a warm majesty, and the angular, modernist writing for chamber orchestra, as powerful in a different way as the drama of the ‘Sanctus’ section.
Agnus Dei
As Mervyn Cook points out, the short ‘Agnus Dei’ is the only movement in which, ‘the Owen poetry and liturgical texts are in complete accord’, the poetry describing, ‘the presence of Christ on the modern battlefield, sustaining bodily wounds to atone for the sins of mankind.’
The Rood Cross in Westminster Cathedral. Photograph: author’s own
The movement was made even more poignant by the presence of the Rood Cross in the Cathedral, a thirty foot high wooden image of Jesus, hanging above the choir. The text of the ‘Agnus Dei’ which described a Christ-like figure hanging above,
“One ever hangs where shelled roads part. In this war He too lost a limb, But His disciples hide apart; And now the Soldiers bear with him.“
[Extract from ‘At a Calvary Near the Ancre’ by Wilfred Owen]
The ‘Agnus Dei’ expressed the central pacifist message of the work as a whole,
“But they who live the greater love Lay down their life; they do not hate.”
[Ibid.]
The movement ended with the incredibly moving words, poignantly sung by Andrew Staples in a gorgeous head voice, ‘dona nobis pacem’, [grant us peace], the only time either of the male soloists sang in Latin. At Peter Pear’s suggestion, Britten replaced the original words of the Requiem Mass, ‘dona eis requiem’ [grant them rest], a significant change bearing in mind his pacifist views.
Libera Me
The closing ‘Libera Me’ reached another terrifying climax, beginning with ominous rumbling of thunderous drums, the choir singing the words, ‘Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna’ [Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death] with a doleful, mournful tone, beautifully controlled by conductor David Hill. The music reached a stunning climax, with superb orchestral playing. The sense of dread was heightened by Elizabeth Watts joining on the words, ‘Tremens factus sum ego’ [I am seized with fear], as if singing from the depths of hell. The ‘Dies Irae’ theme returned, and the choir’s plaintive plea for deliverance gradually died away.
A Strange Meeting underground
The final Owen poem set by Britten is Strange Meeting, describing the surreal underground meeting of an English soldier with a dead German soldier. Britten removed some important lines from Owen’s poem,
“And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell. With a thousand fears that vision’s face was grained; Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground…“
By removing those lines, Britten removes the scene from Hell and specifically back into the trenches of WWI, taking us away from the intensely religious text of the Latin ‘Dies Irae’ and into the intensely personal. The English soldier is addressed by the dead German soldier in some of the most poignant and deeply ironic words ever written about war,
‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend.’
As Mervyn Cooke points out, Britten set the words ‘ strange friend’, sung by the English soldier, to the tritone interval, ‘which here suggests the paradox of companionship between hunter and hunted.’ When the German soldier replies, he sings with ‘perfect fourths [Cooke’s emphasis] which shape his melodic lines signifying his resignation to fate.’
The German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who fought in WWII and sang the part of the German soldier at the premiere, was moved to tears during the rehearsals. He wrote in his autobiography,
“…the first performance created an atmosphere of such intensity that by the end I was completely undone; I did not know where to hide my face. Dead friends and past suffering arose in my mind.”
The chamber orchestra played single held chords beneath the first part of the poem, creating a captivating atmosphere. Andrew Staples’ intensely rapt performance drew us in to the trench with him, but also into a world beyond time, beyond the specifics of that war and into the pity and futility of all wars, giving a warning to the future as the words in Owen’s Preface suggest.
Mark Stone’s warm-voiced, reassuring reply was profoundly moving and human. The key words, ‘I am the enemy you killed my friend’ (see above) were left unaccompanied, giving them greater resonance, as were the next few lines of poetry, punctuated by the precision-tooled anguish of the chords from the chamber orchestra.
The poem ended with a deep sense of resignation from the two male soloists, a very human yearning for sleep, ‘let us sleep now’ that contrasted with the more public, ceremonial expression of the Latin ‘in paradisum’, with the promise of eternal rest in Paradise, Elizabeth Watts soaring brilliantly above the massed forces. But again, as if from beyond the veil the ambiguous tritone-heavy music of the boys’ choir, the ‘Requiem aeternam’ with the bells of the opening section, reappeared.
In a very moving gesture, the Bach choir raised their scores to cover their faces at the end. Conductor David Hill kept silence for a short time to allow brief reflection on the moving and passionate performance of Britten’s pacifist masterpiece we had just heard, then smiled unassumingly as he turned to face the audience’s applause.
Performers
David Hill conductor Elizabeth Watts soprano Andrew Staples tenor Mark Stone baritone The Bach Choir London Youth Junior Boys & Cambiata Boys Choir Philharmonia Orchestra
Sources
Reed, Philip, Obituary: Meredith Davies: Conductor with a special passion for English music (The Guardian 30 March 2005) Cooke, Mervyn, Britten War Requiem (Cambridge Music Handbooks 1996) Programme note by Katherine Richman Gurney, Ivor, War Letters (MidNAG Publications 1983) Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich, Echoes of a Lifetime (Macmillan, 1989)
A dream cast and orchestra bring comedy, conflict and magic to Britten’s Dream
Benjamin Britten’s work is often performed at the Proms – The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra has been performed 44 times, there have been 31 performances of Four Sea Interludes, and even the gargantuan War Requiem has had ten outings. But last Tuesday’s Prom was the first time Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been performed at the Proms. Britten wrote the opera for a much smaller space than the vast Royal Albert Hall, the newly reconstructed Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh which held only 316 people; the space was so small that some of the strings and one of the harps in the original score had to be removed. But there is a precedent for the opera being performed in much bigger spaces, such as the 4000-seater Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1996.
If this was to be the first performance of the opera at a Prom, it was fitting that it was such an excellent production. It was also the first time Garsington Opera had performed in a Prom, accompanied here by the superb Philharmonia Orchestra under Douglas Boyd. The orchestra brought Britten’s magical score to life, starting with ghostly, eerie strings, which represented ‘the wood, deepening night.’ Throughout the opera the orchestra played with rapt concentration, warmth and precision, beautifully shaped and controlled by Boyd. Special mention should be made of the virtuosic trumpet playing of Jason Lewis, who accompanied Puck’s appearances on stage.
Britten wrote the opera very quickly to an urgent deadline, and continued even when he felt ill. A few days before the premiere, he wrote in The Observer, ‘a lot of the third act was written when I was not at all well with flu’, but in a letter to Elizabeth Mayer a few months earlier he admitted he’d been diagnosed with, ‘gout – me, who can’t stand port!’ But despite his health problems, he brought his strong, sometimes schoolboy sense of humour to the opera’s third act, on Tuesday represented by a motley collection of rustics, Shakespeare’s ‘rude mechanicals’, who staged the uproarious ‘play within a play’. The Wall, played by Adam Sullivan (Snout) was covered in what looked like white plaster, the ‘lime and roughcast’ of Shakespeare’s text, making him so stiff he had to be carried by his colleagues. And there was a lovely moment when Quince (John Savournin) accompanied Thisbe (James Way as Flute) on his ukulele, trying to force him back into tune. As Hippolyta (Christine Rice) observed, ‘This is the silliest stuff I have ever heard.’
Perhaps more surprising, but very welcome, was the humour the quartet of lovers brought to the end of act two, where trousers and skirts were lost as in a French farce, and the physical humour brought well-deserved spontaneous applause. But even in this scene, there was a glimpse of one of Britten’s more serious, lifetime preoccupations – the loss of childhood innocence, in Helena’s lines to Hermia following the temporary breakdown of their childhood friendship, ‘O is all forgot? /All school-days friendship, childhood innocence?’ And there was another, brief but heart stopping moment in act three when the four lovers awoke to sing their Mozartian quartet, ‘And I have found [my lover] like a jewel.’ All four were in excellent voice, suiting their characters perfectly. Camilla Harris (Helena) had a lovely, light soprano voice, Stephanie Wake-Edwards (Hermia) a warm, rich contralto, Caspar Singh (Lysander) a plangent tenor, and James Newby a suitably robust baritone (Demetrius). All four relished their acting roles, bringing vivid characterisation to each one.
In his Observer article, written in the early 1960s, Britten described,
“the curious inverted snobbery current in this country which prefers operatic acting to be as bad as possible… I want singers that can act.”
The ‘play within the play’ was an opportunity for him to satirise the worst of wooden acting and 19th century operatic cliches, but elsewhere in this production the high-quality singing was matched by excellent acting. The opera was semi-staged by Rebecca Meltzer, based on Netia Jones’ 2024 Garsington production, but there was never any sense that the limited room the performers had on the platform in front of the orchestra limited the staging or acting.
Oberon was superbly played by countertenor Iestyn Davies, who has also performed the role for English National Opera and at the Aldeburgh Festival. It was fascinating to compare his performance with that of the late James Bowman in the classic Peter Hall production for Glyndebourne in the early 1980s, still available on DVD. Bowman was magisterial and otherworldly in that production, and completely dominated his assistant Puck. In contrast, Davis was peevish and very human, sometimes arguing with Puck, and in particular delivering his showpiece aria ‘I know a bank…’ whilst aggressively threatening Puck. His voice was very different from Bowman’s rich, fruity and mellow tone, more florid and lighter, closer in tone to Paul Esswood or Brian Asawa. His Fairy Queen, Tytania (Lucy Crowe), often dressed all in white with vivid peroxide blond hair, sang her showpiece aria, ‘Come now a roundel’, with a gorgeously creamy, luxurious voice, beautifully controlling the coloratura parts. She brought humanity to her acting, playful when under a spell to Bottom’s charms, but regal in her dealings with Oberon, barely disguising her contempt for him at times. There was conflict between another noble couple too, Theseus (Nicholas Crawley) staggering round with wine bottle and glass in hand, while Hippolyta (Christine Rice) looked on disdainfully. And special mention should be made of Daniel Vening as Bottom, stepping in to cover for Richard Burkhard who was ill, but fitting in perfectly with other members of the cast.
Britten was inspired to make the role of Puck a speaking part when he was in Stockholm, where he,
“…. saw some Swedish child acrobats with extraordinary agility and powers of mimicry, and suddenly realised we could do Puck that way.”
Garsington’s Puck was Jerone Marsh-Reid who trained in physical theatre at East 15 Acting School and brought acrobatic prowess to the role, dressed in a garish green suit. Britten described Puck as. ‘absolutely amoral yet innocent’, but in this production, particularly in his relationship with Oberon, there was something of the immoral about him, more of a knowing adult than his more innocent portrayal by Damien Nash in the Peter Hall version. The Fairies, played by members of Garsington Youth Opera Company, were stunning throughout, with excellent intonation and ensemble – it was a joy to hear such accomplished young voices, including the individual solo voices. As mentioned, this the first time Garsington Opera has performed at the Proms. No doubt, with its resident contemporary orchestra The Philharmonia, it won’t be the last.
Performers
Iestyn Davies Oberon Lucy Crowe Tytania Richard Burkhard replaced by Daniel Vening due to illness Bottom Caspar Singh Lysander James Newby Demetrius Stephanie Wake-Edwards Hermia Camilla Harris Helena Nicholas Crawley Theseus Christine Rice Hippolyta John Savournin Quince Frazer Scott Snug James Way Flute Geoffrey Dolton Starveling Adam Sullivan Snout Jerone Marsh-Reid Puck
Garsington Opera Philharmonia Orchestra Douglas Boyd conductor
Semi-staging by Rebecca Meltzer, based on the 2024 Garsington Opera production directed and designed by Netia Jones
Sources
Benjamin Britten A New Britten Opera (The Observer, 5 June 1960) A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Overture Opera Guides in Association with the English National Opera (Alma Books 2011) BBC Proms Performance Archive Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Glyndebourne Festival Opera [1981] (NVC Arts DVD 2001)
A premiere by Roderick Williams explores the humanity of Elgar’s choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius
David Hill conducting the Philharmonia. Image credit Andy Paradise
Edward Elgar’s choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius, with words by Cardinal John Henry Newman, describes the journey of a soul in the afterlife leading to a devastating encounter with the ‘glance of God,’ the climax of the piece, after which he cries in agony, ‘take me away.’ The opening work in last night’s superb, deeply moving concert was a world premiere (the fourth premiere reviewed here in the last week, after three by Manchester Collective.) Composer and baritone soloist Roderick Williams has written Cusp, commissioned by The Bach Choir, as a companion piece to Gerontius.
Even in the very early 20th century when Gerontius was first performed, and England was largely an Anglican country, Newman’s text was controversial as it featured the Roman Catholic doctrine of the soul passing through Purgatory before reaching Heaven. In contrast, Williams’ new piece views the soul’s journey from the perspective of those still on Earth after the death of a loved one, examining, in his words,
‘…the loss and grief that remains with the living, people of any faith or no faith at all.’
Williams was inspired to think about those left behind by the interaction between The Priest and chorus, the first time the baritone soloist sings in Gerontius.The title Cusp, is taken from the expression ‘on the cusp’, referring, in the words of librettist Rommi Smith to, ‘a transition between two different states … a moment of change’ for both the person who has just died and those left grieving.
Smith’s libretto is a poem divided into four seasons, beginning with Autumn as the loved one is dying, just as the protagonist in Gerontius is ‘near to death’ at the opening. But the old man Gerontius (from γέρων Ancient Greek for old man) is here replaced by a much younger person, still fighting death in a hospital bed hooked up to machines, surrounded by loved ones. Smith’s libretto is based on conversations with her own networks, with medical professionals, and with members of the Bach Choir, sometimes quoted verbatim as in references to ‘cups of tea’ and ‘sweet peas’ in vases. The dying ‘yellow leaves’ of Autumn come Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. Smith adds her own beautiful poetry throughout the poem to create a deeply moving, profoundly human text.
Smith is inspired in the second movement, Winter by the small community in Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood (1954). But she adds her own striking imagery such as the snow which represents ‘the numbness death and grief impose on the living,’ as in the lines, ‘Outside, it is August. Inside/snow is rising up to our waists.’ The movement ends with a contemplation of the soul’s journey like that of Gerontius,
‘Your soul/ now travelling to where/ we can no longer hear it sing.’
The third movement, Spring¸ brings a brief moment of hope, ‘yellow crocuses/appearing through the thaw’, but there’s a crushing realisation that someone followed in a crowd isn’t the lost loved one after all, ‘a stranger turns to look at me’, an overwhelming moment of emotion. The last movement, Summer, finally brings peace, with simple memories of love represented by the cup of tea or sweet peas in a vase. There are also parallels with the end of Gerontius; the dipping of fingers in the earth is a secular version of the Angel dipping the soul of Gerontius into the lake; the birdsong and songs in a church, ‘I hear singing – and it comforts me’, recall the soul in Gerontius, ‘there I will sing my sad perpetual strain.’
Williams’ music is a perfect match for the libretto, sharing and deepening its humanity. The piece begins with sounds effects recorded in a hospital recovery room by a member of the Bach Choir. The rhythmic beeping of the hospital machinery is picked up by the orchestral woodwind and becomes a leitmotif during the piece, just as the Elgar has its own leitmotifs. Rasping brass suggests the pain of death then a sweeping string melody suggests death enveloping the loved one. The writing for chorus is largely consonant and strongly melodic, often calm and hymn-like, reflecting the sorrow and resignation of those around the hospital bed, like the ‘friends’ surrounding Gerontius’ bed.
The Choir’s singing was immaculate throughout the new piece, a great achievement considering the amount of music they had to learn for a piece in which they sang almost constantly – by all accounts, a very different from the premiere of Gerontius in 1900 when the choir was baffled by the difficulty of the music.
The Bach Choir and the Philharmonia. Image credit Andy Paradise
The second movement, Winter features some lovely two-part writing for women, and then a climax of sorts as the baritone soloist (Williams himself) provided a mundane list of painkilling drugs which is picked up by the chorus to create an epic moment with crunchy orchestral chords. There’s a lovely phrase describing a fly as a ‘winged audacity’ which is illustrated by a muted trumpet. The movement ends with an explosion of yearning and grief from the chorus, which subsides with the hope of the coming of Spring, and a peaceful ending like that of Gerontius.
The third movement is more straightforwardly tuneful and optimistic, with simple textures, becoming more hopeful when it seems the loved one is still alive, mounting excitement leading to bitter agony when it becomes clear that the agony of loss will continue. There’s some beautiful word-painting here. The final movement begins with clusters of voices, evoking the ‘soft sunlight’ of Summer. Beating percussion recalls the beeping of the machinery, or perhaps the sun’s rays pushing through as it rises. A big romantic melody describes life unravelling like a ‘Ball of String’ and two pre-recorded sections of children from Winton Primary School recall childhood memories. The warmth of happy memories is evoked by jolly music, and ‘travelling’ no longer describes the passage of the soul but a treasured memory of a journey downhill on a bicycle. The beeping of the opening returns, and the recording of the hospital room, but it now seems happier; we have reached some kind of peace, and reconciliation with grief.
The audience had been asked not to applaud at the end of Cusp, an excellent artist decision as the new work and the old spoke to and illuminated each other. The sweeping string lines and consonant chords of the Williams were similar to the opening Prelude of the Elgar, as if the journey were continuing from one piece to the next. The beeping leitmotif of the Williams piece took us into the Wagnerian world of Elgar’s leitmotifs. This was also an opportunity to hear the orchestra on its own for the first time. The playing of the Philharmonia was superbly refined, with precise ensemble, but warmth and drama where necessary. David’s Hill’s undemonstrative conducting brought out all the detail of Elgar’s rich and expertly orchestrated score.
The orchestra’s refinement was equalled by the Bach Choir. It was easy to forget that this was an amateur choir. The ensemble was as stunning as that of the orchestra, multiple voices joining to create a single, clear vocal line, a difficult feat with such large forces. Even in the most complex moments, clarity of texture was maintained. There were some lovely antiphonal moments, the sound being passed from one side to the other, a beneficial feature of the wide stage at the Festival Hall. The Choir relished the most difficult passages that defeated the singers at the first performance (and many more recent amateur choirs as well), including the challenging Chorus of Demons in Part Two, which they carried off with devilish aplomb, particularly enjoying the demonic laughter. Yet minutes later they became a Choir of Angelicals, and there was a heart stopping moment as the women of the choir soared high above on long held note on the word ‘praise.’ And the later hymns of praise were stunning as the full power and weight of the choir was felt.
The essential humanity of Williams’ piece was also carried forward into the performance of the Elgar. Complex arguments about religious doctrine were set aside. The three soloists brought out the humanity in the sometimes archaic text. The tenor Daniel Norman made his voice sound fragile in the tenderest moments, singing in a gorgeous sotto voce, but at other times more operatic as he rallied himself for his emotional journey, drawing us into the depths of his tortured soul. Roderick Williams was dignified and magisterial as The Priest, but with richness and warmth of tone and an intelligence that reminded us of his essential humanity. In the second half, as The Angel of Agony, he was by turns impassioned and contemplative, pleading on behalf of humankind with the words ‘Jesu! spare these souls.’ And Jennifer Johnston as The Angel brought wisdom and depth, with rich creamy tones and dark-hued low notes, sounding reverential and devotional, and at times noble. The three soloists transformed the piece into an operatic scene, a theatre for the mind. But the last word was left, appropriately, to the Bach Choir with a splendid final ‘Amen’, the packed house giving them a very well-deserved extra burst of enthusiastic applause.
Works
Cusp (world premiere) by Roderick Williams, text by Rommi Smith (Bach Choir commission)
The Dream of Gerontius by Edward Elgar, text by Cardinal John Henry Newman
