It’s been a dozen years since Berlioz’ Grande Messe des Morts was heard at the Proms, and the Albert Hall would seem a natural place for it, because of the huge forces, including four extra sets of brass instruments. When I performed this work in Colston Hall two years ago, these were distributed in four corners of the hall and the Proms prospectus implied that something similar would be done when Thierry Fischer brought the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to the Proms: ‘Although the work’s choral and instrumental requirements are massive, perhaps most revolutionary is its exploitation of the performance space as an element of composition.’
I accordingly positioned myself in the centre of the arena to enjoy the full aural effect of being surrounded by the brass players. However, they were ranged around the edge of the orchestra, apparently following Berlioz’ directions expressed in his memoirs. In fact, Berlioz said that the four bands should be at the corners of the combined choir and orchestra, which when the choir is 500 strong is quite different from simply putting them in a line behind the woodwind.
In any case, was Berlioz being pragmatic, thinking that the players available to him couldn’t cope with being in four corners of a large building? If he could have heard a good orchestra performing thus distributed, would he have given different instructions? I did feel that some of the immediacy – the sense that the events depicted are happening here, now – was lost from the passages where the extra brass were used.
The huge choral forces sang well, although the tenor soloist was recovering from illness and struggled with the higher passages in his very exposed part. Among the orchestra, I’ll single out the lead flute, whose notes seemed to dangle from a thread in some of the quieter, more intimate passages (tempi generally were on the slow side). I think she (or he) deserved their own call at the end.
I raved about this piece last time, but I’ll end with a some food for thought: what was it with Berlioz and judgement? Right from the start (his lost opera Les francs-juges dealt with a group of judges), and later especially the Last Judgement (in which Berlioz didn’t actually believe). He put the Dies irae plainchant into a symphony and emphased the Last Judgement in his Te Deum. His take on the Faust legend isn’t simply called Faust, but La damnation de Faust, emphasising the final verdict. No wonder he came up with something so extraordinary when he set the Dies Irae directly.
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