György Ligeti Requiem (Jennifer France: soprano, Clare Presland: mezzo-soprano)
György Ligeti Lux aeterna (Edvard Grieg Kor)
Richard Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra
A second visit in a week to the Royal Albert Hall, and a second packed house for a programme loosely based around Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A space odyssey – all three works feature in the film’s soundtrack.
Ligeti’s Requiem (1963-5) is a piece that pushes the boundaries of the musically possible. An extraordinarily low-pitched, very quiet opening for the bass singers and trombones leads slowly through a rising progression of instruments and voices, all starting from their lowest registers. This polytonal word painting for the opening line (Requiem aeternam dona eis, Dominine) sets the mood for the rest of the piece, the Kyrie continuing with heavily layered voices and the accompanying strings subdivided into at least sixteen parts.
In a movement of great extremes, The Dies Irae unleashes a violent attack on the first chord. Remarkable acrobatic work from the two sopranos follows (Jennifer France and Clare Presland) for whom Ligeti writes enormous leaps and instant dynamic changes throughout – handled with great skill by both. The concluding Lacrimosa, meanwhile, returns to stings scored as thick as organ mixtures, this time punctuated by chilling harpsichord interjections.
Given the work is a mass for the dead I found it a particularly programmatic interpretation, bringing to mind a tortured soul trapped after a painful death. Comfortable listening the piece isn’t – but powerful, moving and impressive it most certainly is.
After the interval was Ligeti’s much calmer unaccompanied Lux aeterna. Here conductor Edward Gardner opted for a theatrical approach, putting the Edvard Grieg Kor into the top galleries and the hall into darkness bar a single spotlight on the podium. This allowed the audience to focus entirely on the sound, washing down from above – a cleansing coda to the preceding Requiem.
The concluding work, Richard Strauss’s vast tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, is loosely based on ideas from Friedrich Nietzsche’s poem of the same name, and best known for its opening sunrise motif. At the start the sound felt rather than heard, helped by the Albert Hall organ’s pedal stops, a luxury seldom available in concert halls. The LPO’s string section, given full range in Strauss’s exceptionally specific division by desks and players were as warm and lush as I have ever heard in the following Von den Hinterweltern whist the fugue (Von der Wissenshcaft) – often payed in a strictly metrical manner – was gentler and more lyrical than many performances, and approach I liked. The delightful waltz, illustrating The Dance Song (Das Tanzlied) with its busy, chattering wind instrumentation was particularly notable for leader Pieter Schoeman’s excellent solo work with its elaborate string crossings and double stops. Following the dramatic 12 bell strikes the piece winds down to its pianissimo end, delicately played, to a final pairing of chords that never quite settle – a fitting epitaph to a challenging evening.
Lucas Elkin