Royal Scottish National Orchestra: Grande Messe des Morts

Usher Hall 14/06/24

Royal Scottish National Orchestra, RSNO Chorus, Magnus Walker (tenor)

Thomas Søndergård (Conductor)

 I have sung a lot of Berlioz in my career – The Ghost of Hector in ‘Les Troyens’ at La Scala, Milan, Méphistophélès in ‘La Damnation de Faust’ in Canterbury Cathedral, Herod in ‘L’Enfance du Christ’ in Dorchester and the Pope in ‘Benvenuto Cellini’ in the QEH in London – but I had never heard his ‘Grande Messe des Morts’ live. I have now, and the final concert of the RSNO 2023/24 season was a spectacular way to experience it. With an enormous orchestra, four brass bands, 16 timpani (6 pairs and 4 single drums with 10 players), a large choir and a tenor solo, it is one of the most monumental works in the repertoire, and rarely performed.

 It was played tonight to honour the memory of Hedley G Wright (1931-2023), a long-time supporter of the RSNO and one of its greatest patrons, whose dedication to the orchestra continues even after his death. The concert also saw the last performance in Edinburgh of the Associate Principal Trombone, Lance Green, after 42 years with the orchestra. We wish him a happy retirement.

 Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was one of a kind, a composer whose music is impossible to categorise, a maverick genius unlike any other. From his extraordinary early ‘Symphonie Fantastique’, written only three years after Beethoven’s death but seemingly from an entirely different era, through his enormous opera, ‘Les Troyens,’ at the time the longest ever written and deemed unperformable, to his oratorio ‘La Damnation de Faust,’ an amazing interpretation of Goethe’s masterpiece, Berlioz followed his own path, seemingly oblivious to what was happening around him in the world of music.

 His Requiem, or ‘Grande Messe des Morts,’ was commissioned for a commemoration of French soldiers killed at the Siege of Constantine in French colonial Algeria, and first performed at Les Invalides in Paris on 5th December 1837, when the composer was 34. Never one to go for simplicity (compare, for example, Fauré’s ‘Requiem’), Berlioz decided that the Day of Judgement needed to be represented by a section of apocalyptic music, in particular the setting of the words “Day of Wrath, that Day, will dissolve the World in ashes. A Trumpet, spreading a wondrous sound through the graves of all lands, will drive Mankind before the Throne!” What we must remember here is that this was all of 37 years before Verdi wrote his own magnificent Requiem, with its earth-shattering trumpet section for ‘Tuba Mirum.’ Berlioz’s vision of 16 drums and four brass bands at the four points of the compass and a suggested choir of 700-800 voices was unprecedented. Not until Mahler’s 8th Symphony, the ‘Symphony of a Thousand,’ was the world to hear such a “wondrous sound!”

 However, much of the rest of the Requiem is subdued and reverential, with quietly murmured words and eerie combinations of flute and low trombone, often with light cymbal clashes. The ‘Sanctus’ is a beautifully restrained tenor solo, floating ethereally over the hall. Consequently, a performance of the ‘Grande Messe des Morts’ requires enormous forces but also superbly controlled singing and playing.

 We were lucky enough to hear a truly magnificent performance on Friday evening at the Usher Hall. The RSNO was bolstered by students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the RSNO Chorus (well-trained by Stephen Doughty) was augmented by RCS Voices. The tenor soloist was the young Glasgow-born Magnus Walker, a recent graduate of the Opera Course at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and the whole enormous piece was under the charismatic direction of the Music Director of the RSNO, Thomas Søndergård.

 I was hugely fortunate in my career as an operatic bass to work several times with two of the finest interpreters of Berlioz’s music in the last sixty years, Sir Alexander Gibson and Sir Colin Davis, and I can confidently assert that Mr Søndergård is in the same league. It is amusing to note that Sir Alec’s beat was almost non-existent while Sir Colin, with his long baton, was the most precise conductor I ever worked with, but both achieved miracles of clarity and space in Berlioz’s music. Mr Søndergård is very much in Sir Colin’s team, and his control and vision is apparent in his every movement. It is no wonder that the RSNO is nowadays playing with such skill and dexterity, and that can largely be explained by Mr Søndergård’s superb conducting. Flamboyant when he needs to be, he can also create moments of hushed beauty when you could hear a pin drop.

In a concert with so many players, it would be invidious to pick out too many individuals, but the hauntingly beautiful flute playing of Katherine Bryan did stand out. There is very little solo singing in this piece, unlike Verdi’s great masterpiece, but the solo tenor part in the Sanctus is one of the most terrifying and difficult solos in the whole repertoire, coming from nowhere two thirds of the way through, and with no chance to warm up. Magnus Walker was sensational, daring to sing nearly all of the solo mezza voce, and he deserved his ovation at the end. Berlioz was very hard on his tenors, with fiendish roles in ‘Les Troyens’, ‘Benvenuto Cellini’ and ‘La Damnation de Faust’. At least the solo in the Requiem is short! I look forward to hearing more from Mr Walker in the future.

 So there we are! Another RSNO Season comes to an end, and with only one or two tiny caveats, I can say that it has been a triumph. On an evening when most of the men in Scotland (and I dare say a few ladies too) were watching Scotland’s footballers annihilated by Germany, a very good audience came along to the Usher Hall through the rain, and were rewarded with a splendid final concert. Bring on the next season!