A while since our performance of the Berlioz Requiem in London but the time came round for us to revisit it in Gloucester Cathedral. The chorus were mostly the same people, and we still had the Philharmonia Orchestra, but soloist (now Paul Nilon), conductor (now Adrian Partington) and semi-chorus had all changed.
The location posed considerable problems when locating the four extra brass bands. But there is a huge gain when compared with the relatively sterile ambience of the Royal Festival Hall. Here you are surrounded by memorials to those who have died (unlike some Cathedrals, Gloucester hasn’t tidied these away to the cloisters). It gives extra vividness to the depiction of all humanity being rounded up on the Day of Judgement, something which some of these memorials themselves illustrate. Not just one person marching off to their doom as in the Symphonie Fantastique, but the Jacobean teenager who died in childbirth, Edward II, the memsahib who died and was buried at sea, everybody.
There’s talk of a putting on a workshop and performance of this piece again in Gloucester in three years or so – the Grande Messe des Morts fan club clearly has many paid-up members in these parts.
A review from Seen and Heard International: Horrors of Hell unleashed musically in Gloucester’s ancient Cathedral