Fauré Requiem
Usher Hall 27/2/25
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Andrew Manze conductor, SCO Chorus, Gregory Batsleer chorus director, Roderick Williams baritone, Julia Doyle soprano
With nearly fifty in the orchestra and sixty in the SCO Chorus you might wonder why this is a chamber concert. In fact, as tonight’s large audience discover, there is a good deal of intimate music in this Anglo-French programme as well as bursts of blazing glory from the organ, brass and full-throated choir.
The last time I heard Berlioz played at the Usher Hall his ‘Grande messe des morts’ called for forces which dwarfed those, with double basses almost falling off the edge of the stage and brass bands in the gods. Tonight the overture to ‘Beatrice and Benedict’ celebrates life, in the “merry war” between Shakespeare’s mature sparring partners, tricked by their friends into falling in love. A chattering introduction leads into a dramatic dance for full orchestra, taken from the music for the their wedding, which changes to a sonorous slow love song for clarinet and bassoon. These themes alternate for the rest of the work, until the dance finally whirls the happy couple away.
Ruth Gipps (1921-1999) was a pupil of Vaughan Williams, an oboist and composer who chaired the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain in the 1960s, though she encountered a good deal of discrimination in her lifetime. Perhaps as a tribute to her (or maybe just because they’re three top-notch musicians) three of the SCO section principals tonight are women, who play a key role in Gipps’ work as well as the Requiem. Canadian-Armenian, Eva Aronian, currently playing with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, is the guest Leader, Scottish violist, Jessica Beeston, who has recently returned to live here after working in Salzburg and London, is guest principal viola, and our own Su-a-Lee is guest principal cellist. Their trio, with mini solos for each of them, is a delightful interlude in Gipps’ short 1952 ‘Cringlemere Gardens’, an pastoral work for strings only.
Before and after the interval the main works on the programme represent English and French mysticism. Ralph Vaughan Williams’ ‘Five Mystical Songs’ were written between 1906 and 1911, and are settings of poems by George Herbert(1593-1633), one of the later metaphysical poets. Herbert, from an aristocratic Welsh family, (his parents were patrons of the arts, and John Donne was his godfather) was educated at Cambridge, and spent much of his life as an MP, before becoming a rural clergyman three years before his early death at the age of 39. Like Donne he used imagery from everyday life and simple language in his poems which both address God directly and tease out knotty theological ideas. Vaughan Williams identified as an atheist, though later his wife was to describe him as a “cheerful agnostic”. Herbert’s approach to the mysteries of life must have struck a chord, and these warm settings for choir and baritone deserve to be better known. ‘Easter’ and ‘I got me flowers’ are parts of a longer poem. Baritone Roderick Williams begins the song, with the Chorus joining in with string and woodwind accompaniment. ‘I got me flowers’ is quieter, a reflection on the meaning of the Resurrection with the chorus humming quietly behind the soloist. The chorus swells as the narrator discards his doubts in the forte final line “there is but one, and that one ever.” ‘Love bade me welcome’ begins quietly and Roderick Williams picks up its conversational tone, and the poet’s growing certainty. Woodwind accompany quiet sopranos and baritone in the final verse. The short fourth song, ‘The Call’ is a baritone solo with the simplicity of a carol, in which Roderick Williams demonstrates Lieder-like story-telling and quiet certainty. In complete contrast, the Antiphon, ‘Let all the world in every corner sing/My Lord and King’, is introduced by a rushing crescendo, as the men’s voices then the women’s burst forth. There are some softer passages for chorus, but overall this is a joyful celebration and the surging orchestration with brass and drums continues until the end. A magnificent finale to the first half, with the chorus and Roderick Williams beautifully involved in Herbert’s and Vaughan Williams’ plain-spoken mysticism. I had heard the last two songs before, but it was a welcome discovery for many in the audience.
The talk before the concert given by Roderick Williams and Gregory Batsleer, and expertly chaired by viola player Steve King focused on the preparation for the Fauré Requiem. Gregory Batsleer says he and the Chorus have sung the Requiem three times before, and they’ve had time in this rehearsal period to get ”into all the corners of the work” and he commends Andrew Manze’s instruction to the singers that they should sing the hushed passage “as if to themselves.” Roderick Williams discloses that his well-worn copy of the score has lost its original cover. The expertise of conductor, chorus and soloist, worn lightly on stage, is what gives this performance its air of warm security.
As the orchestra takes its place, I’m reminded of the group’s discussion of a critic’s surprising remark that the Fauré Requiem was a “bit of a mess”. This refers to the oddities of the concert-hall orchestration of the1900 version, played tonight, built up from small-scale chamber accompaniments in the work’s early appearances. There’s a large orchestra on stage but a number of musicians don’t have much to do. The three women guest leaders play a prominent part, with Jessica Beeston leading the six violas at the front of the stage in the first violins usual space on the conductor’s left. Su-a Lee is on the right leading the six cellos and straight ahead, Eva Aronian leads the first violins, who are spread out behind the violas and cellos. An unusual layout, but in terms of the sound, marvellous. The rich alto sound starts with the altos and tenors in the choir having much of the singing, the lower strings backing them and Michael Bawtree on organ and Eleanor Hudson on harp, the four horn players and two bassoonists are also an important part of the mix.
Like Brahms, Fauré saw his Requiem as consolatory, permeated by “a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest” but like Vaughan Williams had become sceptical about his religious beliefs. With the middle strings playing their own theme, the choir’s hushed ‘Introit’ swells briefly on “et Lux perpetua”, and more loudly on “exaudi orationum” leading to a short quiet Kyrie. The solemn Offertory begins in the strings before the altos and tenors pray softly for the souls of the departed – the pains of hell are mentioned but not dramatized in the Mozart or Verdi manner. Roderick Williams sings his first solo in in the ‘Hostias’, a deeply felt prayer for a peaceful death with a coda for the whole chorus. Violins and harp provide the rippling sound behind the choir’s soprano-led ‘Sanctus’, before a horn fanfare in the Hosanna.
Roderick Williams sings at the front of the stage, but Julia Doyle sings from the higher choir stalls for ‘Pie Jesu’. Although it’s often sung by boy altos, Fauré preferred a woman soprano, and in Julia Doyle’s performance which makes you hear the most familiar part of the work afresh you can see why. Both she and Roderick Williams have the measure of the Usher Hall’s acoustic, singing with clarity and compassion. Male voices predominate in the ‘Agnus Dei’, with its forward momentum delivering a rare burst of full orchestration contrasting with the choir’s ‘Requiem aeternum’. The Libera Me sung by Roderick Williams begins with pizzicato accompaniment before the choir’s response is interrupted by trumpets and drums. The baritone returns to sing the last lines. ‘In Paradisum’, taken from the burial rites rather than the requiem mass is a glowing transcendent conclusion with the choir soaring above the organ arpeggios.
This well-judged and moving performance from orchestra, choir and soloists receives loud and prolonged applause from the audience. Andrew Manze, as ever, impresses both with his choice of programme and his unobtrusive and masterly direction of the orchestra and chorus.
