prom 46: simon rattle conducts the lso in schoenberg’s ... gurrelieder – in three parts for solo...

Schoenberg

Gurrelieder – in three parts for solo voices, chorus and orchestra to a text from Gurresange by Jens Peter

Jacobsen in the German translation by Robert Franz Arnold [sung in German]

Waldemar – Simon O’Neill

Tove – Eva-Maria Westbroek

Wood Dove – Karen Cargill

Peasant – Christopher Purves

Klaus-Narr – Peter Hoare

Thomas Quasthoff (speaker)

CBSO Chorus

Orfeó Català

London Symphony Chorus

London Symphony Orchestra

Sir Simon Rattle

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007v097/episodes/player)

Prom 46: Simon Rattle conducts the LSO in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, with Simon O'Neill, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Karen Cargill, Christopher Purves, Peter Hoare, Thomas Quasthoff

Saturday, August 19, 2017 Royal Albert Hall, London

Written by Peter Reed

What is it about doomed lovers and the inexorable progress towards a New Music? First Tristan und Isolde,

then Pelléas et Mélisande, and, almost as though he wanted to have the last word, the young Arnold

Schoenberg, music’s saviour from the straitjacket of tonality (or so he thought then), slapped down his late-

romantic credentials with Gurrelieder, about Waldemar and Tove’s forbidden love, Tove’s death at the hands of

Waldemar’s jealous wife, Waldemar’s cursing God for allowing such a tragedy and his being condemned to

ride the land with his spectre-vassals until the whole gothic contraption is subsumed into a glorious sunrise.

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Phew, what a scorcher – and romanticism’s last, long exhalation has been raising the Royal Albert Hall’s

rafters fairly frequently over the past half-century; my first Gurrelieder was with Jessye Norman unforgettable

as an orchestra-surfing Tove. It’s a work Simon Rattle has championed throughout his career, and you can see

why. It plays to all his conducting strengths in terms of drama and its open-ended potential, and it takes him

well and truly into his comfort zones.

The sheer scale of Schoenberg’s dramatic setting may seem daunting – a vast orchestra with, for this Prom,

the LSO muscled up with twelve double basses, Wagner tubas, multiple woodwinds and brass and those

notorious chains, six soloists including a Pierrot Lunaire-anticipating Sprechgesang role and a mighty male

chorus taking to its hellish steeds – but, while Rattle is not afraid to let rip he is just as keen on releasing the

score’s detail and translucence.

Gurrelieder is certainly one of German romanticism’s most-extreme offspring, but Rattle channels

Schoenberg’s exuberant scoring through a French-style impressionist sensibility. He and the LSO were spot-on

in tracking the changes in the composer’s style in a work that took a decade (1900-10) to complete, resulting in

a beginning that sounds very different from its end. It’s a compelling mix of style coming up against taste, and

Rattle and his orchestra-in-waiting – he assumes the LSO’s music directorship next month – pulled it off with

astonishing panache, in a way that was, importantly, hugely supportive of the singers, mainly because his

preference for nuance and separation of texture over orchestral bulk gave the über-expressive Germanic vocal

lines a chance to make their mark. Even so, it is Wagner’s presence that looms largest, with due deference to

the Mahler of Das klagende Lied, and there are rich pickings to be heard from Lohengrin, Die Walküre and the

torment of Parsifal cleverly absorbed into Schoenberg’s constantly overheating opera-oratorio, nature-

worshipping tone-poem hybrid. Rattle relished but never traduced its extravagance.

There is nowhere to hide for Waldemar. Not only is he present for all three parts – and leading the first two –

and the vocal line is punishingly high. Simon O’Neill gave his heldentenor its all both musically and as the regal

essence of romantic agony. There were moments when even this consistent, superman tenor was pushed

under by orchestral might, but his ardour was unassailable in passages such as ‘Du wunderliche Tove’. As the

latter, Eva-Maria Westbroek was radiant and unashamedly operatic, piling on the eroticism as she and her

lover get nearer to Tristan-like oblivion. Both singers’ alternating songs spared nothing as they raised the

temperature of desire. Oddly, there is no lovers’ duet, but Jacobsen’s ballad-poem steps into the breach with

the sort of burgeoning, even bulging sexual imagery that would keep a sex therapist in business for ever. When

it’s all over for Tove, implied by a brooding interlude, Karen Cargill sang a hair-raising account of Tove’s death

and funeral in the ‘Song of the Wood-Dove’, her sumptuous lower range bringing Part One to its tragic

conclusion.

With Christopher Purves’s excellent Peasant describing the Wild Hunt, it was a relief to hear a male solo not

straining for top notes, and together with Peter Hoare’s highly characterised Klaus the Fool they briefly eased

the dramatic tension. Thomas Quasthoff (who was performing the role of the Peasant until he retired from

singing in 2012) took the Speaker’s part. It was more Sprech than Gesang, articulate but frankly not loopy

enough. It is much more effective taken by a woman – the composer approved either genders.

The other, very minor heavy-metal disappointment was the chains that are supposed to add an Edgar Allan

Poe-like frisson to the Wild Hunt. When you could hear them it was more jingle than clank – I’ve heard them

sounding like the contents of the cutlery drawer dropped onto a sheet of metal – but otherwise the sound was

superlative, from the glittering, Ravelian opening supporting a thread of silvery trumpet, to the overwhelming

volume of the Hunt to the decidedly post-romantic chamber forces delicately accompanying the Speaker, it was

all done with immense conviction. As for the chorus, the men in the Hunt were tremendous and the sight of the

full forces cupping their hands over their mouths for more volume in the final, unbelievably grand hymn capped

the impact of this stupendous evening.

• Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 (available on BBC iPlayer for thirty days afterwards)

• BBC Proms www.bbc.co.uk/proms (http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms)

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Labels: BBC, concert review, LSO, Proms

Large-scale beauties: Schoenberg's Gurrelieder at the BBC Proms

Schoenberg Gurrelieder; Simon O'Neill, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Karen Cargill, Thomas Quasthoff, London Symphony

Orchestra, Simon Rattle; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall

Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Aug 19 2017

Star rating: 4.0

Schoenberg's outrageous masterpiece in a performance which brought out the beauties of the work's

orchestration

With its gargantuan forces and rather outrageous sense of heightened Romanticism, Arnold Schoenberg's

Gurrelieder seems an ideal work for the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. On Saturday 19 August 2017, Sir

Simon Rattle brought the London Symphony Orchestra (whose artistic director he becomes next month) to the

Proms to perform Schoenberg's late-Romantic masterpiece (a work that the orchestra would be unlikely to be able

to perform in the confines of their regular home, the Barbican Hall). Rattle and the LSO were joined by three choirs,

the London Symphony Chorus, the CBSO Chorus and Orfeo Catala (all three have Simon Halsey as director/chorus

director/principal conductor) and soloists Simon O'Neill (Waldemar), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Tove), Karen Cargill

(Wood-Dove), Peter Hoare (Klaus the Fool), Christopher Purves (Peasant) and Thomas Quasthoff (Speaker).

Schoenberg started the work in 1900, intending a song-cycle setting Jens Peter Jacobsen's verse sequence Gurresange in the

recently published German translation. The work still has the feel of a song cycle, albeit in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde mode,

even though Schoenberg decided to vastly expand the work and set the whole verse sequence (as well as adding an extra Jacobsen

poem for the final section). Between 1900 and 1901 he drafted it all in short score, but it was not until 1910 that he completed the

orchestration of the final part, and the work did not get its premiere until 1913. By the time he came to complete the orchestration,

Schoenberg's style had changed radically, and the final section has a very different feel with greater fleetness and a far sparer use of

the orchestra. These changes, owing to the work's long gestation, are akin to what happened to Stravinsky with Les Noces, which

was conceived for large-scale Rite of Spring forces, but eventually orchestrated with a far smaller ensemble.

Not only does Schoenberg use large forces, but he is almost determinedly cavalier in their deployment. The women of the huge

chorus only sing in the final number (the men's chorus has two numbers on their own), whilst many of the soloists have a single

number (albeit a meaty one).

Though Rattle drew large scale sounds from his forces where necessary, with a resounding climax and some thrilling moments on

the way, he was also determined to bring out the beauties of Schoenberg's orchestral writing, often paring the sound right down. It

was beauty, transparency and elegance of the orchestral playing which really impressed. Given his huge orchestra, Schoenberg

showed his mastery in the way he used the forces flexibly, and Rattle and his players brought this out.

That said, Schoenberg does not make it easy for the soloists. Simon O'Neill was stylish and tireless in the taxing role of Waldemar,

singing with great elegance of line and much heroic ardour. There was no denying, the way Schoenberg really pushes the tenor to

the limits, and meaning that romantic ardour and beauty of tone sometimes had to give way to more heroic timbres. We were sitting

at the side of the stalls, and it seemed as if Rattle, for all his concern for the details of the orchestration, could sometimes have been

kinder to the soloists but the balance might have been different in the centre of the hall. I did wonder what the effect of the stage

performances of the work might be, something that happened at Netherlands Opera in a production by Pierre Audi (see review on

Bachtrack), the orchestra being in the pit would certainly help balance.

Eva-Maria Westbroek was richly ardent as Tove, but her tone was too often dramatic with a strong vibrato and sense of the music's

strenuousness when what I wanted was a more sensuous beauty to the performance. It was Karen Cargill, as the Wood-Dove who

showed how to combine beauty of tone, elegance and expressivity with dramatic power in her account of the Wood-Dove's solo,

which made it one of the highlights of the piece.

The other soloists were strongly characterised, with Peter Purves as a bluff peasant, and Peter Hoare in brilliantly incisive form as

Klaus the Fool. Thomas Quasthoff projected the tricky spoken part from quite superbly.

Schoenberg's Gurrelieder in rehearsal at the BBC Proms (photo courtesy of London Symphony Chorus)

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Posted by Robert Hugill at 8/20/2017 09:21:00 am

When the finally came in (at the beginning of Part Three) the mens chorus (around 180 of them, I think) fully matched Rattle's

concept of the work producing a wonderfully focussed sound. And the final chorus was glorious.

Gurrelieder is one of those works which spans the 19th and 20th centuries, building on Wagner's Tristan und Isolde yet indicating a

path along which it would be difficult to go further. Magnificent though Gurrelieder is, you can understand why composers turned

away from this style as the 20th century progressed.

The concert is available on BBC iPlayer for 30 days.

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Singing Wagner: A continuation of our conversation between Claire Rutter and Dame Anne Evans - interview

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Oh what a remarkable score!: Rogers and Hamerstein's Oklahoma! at the BBC Proms - Concert review

A line crossing the century: Leonard Elschenbroich in Dutilleux, Messiaen, Debussy, Ravel and Saint-Saens - CD review

Remarkable double portrait: Joyce El-Khoury & Michael Spyres on Opera Rara - CD review

Complex and rewarding: New Brian Elias cello concerto - concert review

Singing Wagner: A conversation between Claire Rutter and Dame Anne Evans - interview

Miracles & Footsteps: Tenebrae in Joby Talbot and Owain Park - CD review

Holding our attention: Roberta Mameli & Ensemble Mare Nostrum in Stradella - CD review

Luxuriance & classicism: Christiane Karg's Parfums - CD review

From the engaging to the intense: Schütz and Bach at the Proms in a programme from John Eliot Gardiner celebrating

the Reformation - concert review

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Sir Simon Rattle’s Inspirational Gurrelieder at the

Proms

20/08/2017

Pàgina 1 de 6Sir Simon Rattle’s Inspirational Gurrelieder at the Proms : Seen and Heard Inte...

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United Kingdom 2017 BBC PROMS 46 – Schoenberg, Gurrelieder: Soloists, CBSO Chorus, London

Symphony Chorus, Orfeó Català, London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle (conductor), Royal Albert

Hall, London, 19.8.2017. (AS)

Simon O’Neil (Waldemar) with the London Symphony Orchestra

(c) BBC/Chris Chistodoulou

Cast:

Tove – Eva-Maria Westbrook

Waldemar – Simon O’Neill

Wood-Dove – Karen Cargill

Klaus the Fool – Peter Hoare

Peasant – Christopher Purves

Speaker – Thomas Quasthoff

It’s true that huge choral forces took up the entire section of seats behind the orchestra on either side, but

otherwise the hall was pretty well full to capacity at this concert, and the arena was packed. I imagine that

many came to this event in order to experience Sir Simon Rattle’s first Prom concert with the LSO, but it was

heartening to see such a large audience for a work that is still a rarity in performance. And that audience was

very attentive. Gone were most of the coughers, the fidgets, the neighbours muttering to each other in stage

whispers and all the other usual Prom distractions. The atmosphere was indeed electric as we saw and heard

a most wonderful performance unfold in front of us.

Simon Halsey is the chorus-master of all three bodies listed above, and his contribution in training his forces

to the pitch of excellence they displayed must be acknowledged. We take the excellence of the LSO for

granted: on this occasion it was a much augmented ensemble, with not only a large battery of percussionists

and numerous brass players, but with extended string forces – there were for instance 20 first and 20 second

violins.

The soloists (Eva-Maria Westbrook, Simon O’Neill, Karen Cargill, Peter Hoare and Christopher Purves)

were all first-rate, all highly experienced and entirely comfortable in their roles. It would be invidious to

select any one for particular praise, though an exception might be made in the case of the Speaker, Thomas



NPR NY Times BBC Independent News

Quasthoff. Schoenberg apparently wanted this part to be taken by a retired singer, and Quastoff’s bass-

baritonal Sprechgesang resounded throughout the hall with magnificent effect.

Then there was Sir Simon Rattle. In this kind of repertoire he is at his very best, and at his best there is none

better than he as an inspirational generator of performance energy in front of large choral and orchestral

forces. The manner in which he conjured up and maintained an exotic, hypnotic atmosphere throughout the

varied episodes of the work was quite extraordinary. No passage in its 110-minute length flagged; every

episode was characterised with compelling richness and complete understanding of Schoenberg’s unique

demands.

Finally, the music itself. Should we regret that this was Schoenberg’s only choral essay of this character and

magnitude, and that he soon abandoned its highly expressive, very late-Romantic style for more astringent

methods of composition? I think not. As the programme note reminded us, he was already going down the

path towards atonality before he finally completed the Gurrelieder, and he could not have gone back to such

a lavishly expressive style with any degree of comfort. He did of course return to tonality on occasion after

he had evolved his serial technique, but his remaining works in traditional forms are smaller in scope and

range of expression. In the Gurrelieder there are continual intimations of things to come, both in the work’s

instrumentation and in its expressive explorations of the extremes of tonality: sometimes tonality is already

breached. The Gurrelieder is an unique work. It has absorbed Wagnerian and other influences and speaks

with a completely individual voice.

Alan Sanders

For more about the BBC Proms click here.

Posted by Alan Sanders | Filed Under BBC Promenade Concerts 2017, Concert Reviews, UK Concerts

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Eva-Maria Westbroek and Simon Rattle in Part One of Schoenberg's 'Gurrelieder'All images by Chris Christodoulou/BBC

From sunset to sunrise, across aeons of time, usually flashes by

in Schoenberg's polystylistic epic. Not last night at the Proms:

Simon Rattle is too much in love with the sounds he can get

from the London Symphony Orchestra - here verging on a

Berlin beauty - to think of moving forward the doomed love of

Danish King Waldemar and the beautiful Tovelille. Still,

occasional stickings in the gold-studded mud apart, the variety

and vividness of the work, the Albert Hall coming into its own as

it often does for big chorus-and-orchestra events and the steady

addition of more ideal soloists than the ones with which we

started, worked their magic.

It may be because two nights earlier I'd heard Paavo Järvi and the

Estonian Festival Orchestra give such a white-heat performance of

Sibelius's Second Symphony - another work of huge originality from

around the same time as Gurrelieder's 1900 inception - that the

unfolding of Schoenberg's gorgeous love-themes came across as self-

conscious, narcissistic even. The same had been true of Rattle's

Wagner Tristan Prelude with the LSO at the Barbican earlier this

summer. But then these two lovers weren't quite right in their roles,

either.

Waldemar needs to be a baritonal heldentenor with vivid involvement in

the texts of what in effect are five Lieder interlaced with four from the

soprano; Simon O'Neill's delivery was under-nuanced, the tone

unballasted, so that when he did let rip at the top - which happened

much more effectively in his later monologues - it came as a surprise.

And Tove needs to be luminous, sensuous; Eva-Maria Westbroek is

such a sympathetic, engaged performer that I wanted to love her, but

the tuning was awry in what should be the bewitching echo of clarinet

at the declaration of love, the wide-spread tone too monochrome.

Miscasting, in short.

What a

miracle Rattle

made of those

portions of the

score

completed in

1911 fter the

discovery of a

new

Expressionism

rating

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Prom 46 review: Gurrelieder, LSO, Rattle - gorgeous colours, halting movement in Schoenberg's monsterpieceKaren Cargill and Thomas Quasthoff provide the tingle quotient in a Proms

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Shareby David Nice | Sunday, 20 August 2017

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Proms at... & Prom 56 reviews: Multi-Story Orchestra / BBCSO, Hrůša - the best of all possible worldsA great festival day, from one hundred

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Prom 50 review: Josefowicz, Clayton, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla - personality in every barLight rather than power in Beethoven, plus

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Pàgina 2 de 4Prom 46 review: Gurrelieder, LSO, Rattle - gorgeous colours, halting moveme...

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Everything we'd been missing came in spades as mezzo Karen Cargill

(pictured above) turned the lamentatory screw in the Wood-Dove's

plaint for the murdered Tove: here at last was a wealth of colours from

cavernous chest-voice to bright high notes, and a commitment to

match. Cargill's was the true vocal triumph of the evening, matched at

the other end of the mood-spectrum by Thomas Quasthoff's narration

of redemptive nature: such projection, such inflection of Jens Peter

Jacobsen's strange visionary text in German and such ecstasy at the

invocation which finally brings in the crowning sun-chorus.

Combined forces of the London Symphony Chorus, City of Birmingham

Symphony Chorus and Orfeó Català - Barcelonan choristers whose

home thoughts must have been sombre indeed - seemed to rise up to

the rafters behind the orchestra, filling every available space there, but

to be honest they didn't quite make a noise to match. The men as God-

cursing Waldemar's ghost riders should have raised the hair on our

necks; they needed an injection of the raucousness we got from the

National Youth Choir of Scotland in last week's Berlioz Damnation of

Faust. In any case Rattle's brass - always resplendent, it has to be

said, from the first trumpet solo onwarrds - was so much on the

rampage that they proved stronger than the riders, and even the

umpteenth percussionist whose duty it is to rattle chains couldn't be

heard.

But what a miracle Rattle made of those portions of the score

completed in 1911 after the discovery of a new Expressionism, above

all the summer-wind sequence with Quasthoff and the cosmic cabaret

as Klaus the Jester bowls forth to complain of his part in the wild ride.

This is a part made for the splendid Peter Hoare, who would have been

even more vivid still if he'd been onstage and liberated from the score.

Here, and in Quasthoff's narration, it's most essential that audience

members don't have their heads buried in their programmes and are

able to follow the English translation on the big screens we'd had for

the only time this season in Khovanshchina two weeks earlier. So for a

third time this season, a plea must conclude the review - write to the

BBC if you think surtitles should be obligatory for the big vocal works at

the Proms - alongside immense gratitude that such a massive

assemblage of musicians should be possible, and in the right place.

The biggest, of course, is last: a blazing affirmation of the C major that

Schoenberg had abandoned by the time his hymn to universal love

stunnd Vienna in 1913.

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Prom 46 review: Gurrelieder, LSO, Rattle - gorgeous colours, halting movement in Schoenberg's monsterpiece

Karen Cargill and Thomas Quasthoff provide the tingle quotient in a Proms spectacular

Classical CDs Weekly: Krenek, Belfiato Quintet, Bjarte Eike's BarokksolisteneAtonal piano concertos, Czech wind music, and a trip to a 17th century pub

Edinburgh Festival 2017 review: Andreas HaefligerA recital that was both frustrating and visionary from the Swiss-born pianist

Proms 37 / 38 review: Latvian Radio Choir, Gavrylyuk, BBCSSO, Dausgaard - numinous Rachmaninov triptychSymphony, concerto, chants and Vespers

combine for a vintage night at Royal Albert Hall

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• Listen to this concert on the BBC iPlayer for the next month.

• BBC Four screening on 3 September at 8pm

• More classical music reviews on theartsdesk

Submitted by Stephen Winfield (not verified) on Sun, 20/08/2017 - 13:01

Stuart Neill???!!!

Reply

Submitted by Andrew Morris (not verified) on Sun, 20/08/2017 - 14:23

I think you mean Simon O'Neill, David? No issue with brass-obscured riders from where I was standing, so maybe a quirk of the ever-fickle acoustic. I know the piece primarily from Rattle's recording so I wasn't so aware of his tempo manipulations. Still, I'd like him to give in to the temptation to go wild once in a while. It's no mean feat to balance a lot of that texture, though - a less carefully prepared 2012 Proms performance came off as quite a lot of exciting noise.

Reply

Submitted by david.nice on Sun, 20/08/2017 - 14:51

Thanks, both - corrected. I know him well but blame a late night and an early start. My first Gurrelieder was Michael Gielen's at the Proms, and though advance press labelled him a rather pedestrian conductor, how it surged and flowed. Of other performances - and there have been a lot, surprisingly - I remember Hans Hotter as the Sprecher and Margaret Price towards the end of her career for Nagano in Paris - that was impressive too.

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Flora Willson

Schoenberg's Gurrelieder review – size does matter in this magnum opus Royal Albert Hall, LondonThe supersize scale did not disappoint as Simon Rattle lead the

LSO and a superb lineup of soloists in Schoenberg’s answer to Tristan and Isolde

Sunday 20 August 2017 17.07 BST

When the Royal Albert Hall opened in 1871, the Victorian craze for so-called “monster” concerts was in full swing. Cathedrals, exhibitions and concert halls regularly staged performances involving hundreds or even

thousands of performers. This was music on an industrial scale. Today we may be more concerned about the size of audiences for classical music than with counting musicians, but the Royal Albert Hall’s cavernous space allows for occasional excursions back to the age of the musically massive.

Few pieces have weightier vital statistics than Schoenberg’s late-Romantic Gurrelieder. With eight flutes, 11 horns (four moonlighting on Wagner tubas), seven trombones, four harps, an ocean of strings and an enormous chorus to

Pàgina 1 de 3Schoenberg's Gurrelieder review – size does matter in this magnum opus | Mus...

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Since you’re here … … we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever

but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news

organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as

open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s

independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work

to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it

might well be your perspective, too.

I appreciate there not being a paywall: it is more democratic for the media to be

available for all and not a commodity to be purchased by a few. I’m happy to

accommodate, even the RAH’s stage was at capacity. But the auditorium was also stuffed. This was, after all, a prom that looked good on paper: Simon Rattle with the London Symphony Orchestra (he’ll become their new music director in September) and a starry lineup of heavyweight vocal soloists. Tick, tick, tick.

The reality did not disappoint. As the narrative’s central figure King Waldemar, Simon O’Neill boasted serious stamina and an unerring sense of musical line. Balance is a real challenge in this piece, where even huge solo voices can be submerged, but O’Neill’s bright, hard, upper register largely carried over the orchestral groundswell, taking flight ever more extravagantly as the romance turned tragic. Eva-Maria Westbroek’s ill-fated Tove was warm and deeply, seductively expressive. Karen Cargill’s Wood-Dove emerged from an earthy, covered start to soar, seamlessly legato, to the part’s higher reaches. In the smaller roles, Christopher Purves was a rich, lyrical Peasant, Peter Hoare brought almost Beckmesser-ish characterisation to Klaus the Fool and Thomas Quasthoffwas a compelling Speaker. The chorus provided a tour de force of fine diction and sustained energy.

And then there was Rattle and the LSO. Rattle’s gestures ranged freely from the cartoonishly expansive to minute, barely visible caresses as he teased individual lines from the supersize orchestral fabric. The results were as viscerally exciting as any orchestral performance I can recall – from the languorous trumpet solo and velveteen strings of the Prelude, via taut col legno clatters and abrupt,

resonating pauses, to cymbal shivers, sinuous unison cellos, and occasional flashes of silver-screen glissandi in the violins. This was, above all, an intoxicating embrace of the gigantic ebb and flow of Schoenberg’s score – and an ecstatic celebration of a work in which size really does matter.

On BBC iPlayer until 18 September. The Proms continue until 9 September. Box office: 020-7589 8212.



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Topics

• Proms 2017

• Classical music

• Simon Rattle

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• reviews



Prom 46: Rattle's Gurrelieder an irresistible force to move the hardest of hearts

Saturday night's Prom provided a tantalising glimpse of what is to come

with the London Symphony Orchestra (and their Chorus) under the baton

of Sir Simon Rattle. The sheer scale of Gurrelieder shows the scope of

Rattle's ambition. The Danish legend of doomed lovers King Waldemar

and Tovelille is one of the largest choral works ever written, requiring five

soloists, a speaker, three large male voice choirs (joined by upper voices

in the final chorus) and an orchestra with no less than four Wagner tubas!

With such massive forces, the main concern would always be whether the

orchestra and voices could maintain a balance, particularly in an acoustic

such as the Royal Albert Hall. Some rose to the challenge more than

z SEE FULL LISTING

“It felt as though we were on the sun itself, never mind beholding it”

Reviewed at Royal Albert Hall, London

on 19 August 2017

PROGRAMME

Schoenberg, Gurrelieder

PERFORMERS

Eva-Maria Westbroek, Soprano

Simon O'Neill, Tenor

Karen Cargill, Mezzo-soprano

Peter Hoare, Tenor

Christopher Purves, Baritone

Thomas Quasthoff, Baritone

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Chorus

Orféo Català

London Symphony Chorus

London Symphony Orchestra

Sir Simon Rattle, Conductor

****1

By Penny Homer, 21 August 2017

Sir Simon Rattle conducts the LSO

© BBC | Chris Christodoulou

Pàgina 1 de 4Prom 46: Rattle's Gurrelieder an irresistible force to move the hardest of hearts...

28/08/2017https://bachtrack.com/review-prom-46-gurrelieder-rattle-oneill-westbroek-cargill...

others, in spite of Rattle's sensitive reading of the acoustic. Simon

O'Neill's Waldemar was much more convincing in death than in life,

though even then there was still a sense that his approach came from an

awe of the technical challenges rather than a deep connection with the

text. Eva-Maria Westbroek took a while to warm up to her environment as

his fated lover Tovelille, though once she had she was full of feeling and

expression which more than compensated for a few moments of murky

diction – even after Tove's demise, she (remaining seated on stage) was

visibly moved by the music around her.

Karen Cargill showed them all how it was done, with an absolute

masterclass of a performance as the Wood-Dove; with clarity of diction

and tone, she was never swamped by the huge forces around her, even

as they erupted with her final declaration of flying far to seek out grief and

death. A close second to her sheer brilliance was Peter Hoare as Klaus

the Fool, clearly enjoying the madness of his moment, which could only

have been enhanced by slightly less reliance on the music. Christopher

Purves also brought clarity to his turn as a terrified peasant watching

Waldemar's undead army ride by, while Thomas Quasthoff's Speaker

was a tour de force, exhaling in the renewal of nature, ushering in the

final climax of the sun-chorus. ****1 READ MORE

**111 READ MORE

WHAT'S ON?

FIND CONCERTS NOW

AUGUST 2017

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

01 02 03 04 05 06

07 08 09 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31

Evening performance

Matinee performance

1 More Concert reviews

A pioneering spirit: Rattle’s imaginary journey through Haydn

Mark Thomas, 12th July

Sir Simon Rattle steers the LSO

through a sequence of Haydn’s most

forward-looking pieces while Denis

Kozhukhin, as a late stand-in, is

immense in Bartók’s Second Piano

Concerto.

A Trip to the Moon misses its lift-off

Sophia Lambton, 10th July

Under Sir Simon Rattle’s baton,

Andrew Norman’s children’s opera

struggles to find either terrene or

otherworldly land.

Robert Treviño triumphs in LSO debut

Roy Westbrook, 26th June

Eva-Maria Westbroek and the LSO




And what a chorus it was, combining the forces of the LSC, the CBSO

Chorus and Orféo Català. It felt as though we were on the sun itself,

never mind beholding it, as hundreds of voices exploded with a crystal-

clear diction "Seht die Sonne". It didn't matter that after this it was almost

impossible to discern the rest of the text, the message was clear; after all

the pain and glory and death, the sun rises again in splendour and hope

is renewed. It more than made up for nebulous enunciation elsewhere

from the men too, though they were beautifully hushed as they sank down

to sleep the sleep of the undead. The tenor section in particular deserves

huge credit – so delicate yet unstrained were their highest moments, it

was easy to wonder whether they’d had support from the altos seated

behind them (they hadn’t).

While at times it did feel like the voices and the orchestra were engaged

in battle for supremacy, there were far more moments of synergy –

****1 READ MORE

***11 READ MORE

Nietzsche's Midnight Song is the

stillest piece of music in all Mahler,

and Treviño’s poise and Larsson’s

rich voice cast a powerful and

profound spell.

Playing the Game: Symphonic Odysseys

Danny Riley, 21st June

The latent complexities of Nobuo

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Karen Cargill and the LSO


Gurrelieder at the BBC Proms




beautifully lyrical violins announcing Tove’s entrance, jubilantly

underscoring Waldemar’s love for her, the huge percussion section

bringing the dead very much to life with rattling chains and firing blistering

heat into the final chorus. The orchestra also had their own moments in

the sun (and shade) – the orchestral interlude before Tove’s death was

heartbreaking, heaving with love, loss and foreboding, with haunting

birdsong rounding out the prelude before the Wood-Dove’s entrance. It

was also clear that the orchestra were enjoying themselves immensely

under Rattle’s baton, and that the feeling was mutual. As an indication of

what’s to come, this performance was an absolute treat.

1 COMMENTS

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Posted on Tuesday 22 August 2017 at 08:40

4 Wagner Tubas? Nothing special... Used by Wagner all the time! And other

composers.Bruckner in 3 of his symphonies, Strauss in Elektra, Frau ohne Schatten

and Alpensinfonie, Stravinsky Sacre du printemps and the Firebird. And they usually

come in fours being played by the horn quartet.

Penny HomerPenny Homer graduated from the University of Nottingham with a Bachelor of Music degree in 2003,

where she was also a choral scholar at St Barnabas Cathedral. She is keenly interested in arts and

education, and her work across both includes stints at Akademi South Asian Dance UK and Benslow

Music Trust. Additionally she worked for Edition Peters in their sales department before joining the

Association of British Choral Directors as their Training Manager. Penny currently sings at Eton Lower

Chapel, St Andrews Fulham Fields, Wimbledon Choral Society, Londinium and Vocal Constructivists, and

continues her vocal studies with Ian Kennedy.

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MUSIC, NEWSBY ANDREW ANDERSON ON AUGUST 21, 2017 ANALYSIS

Simon Rattle © Oliver Helbig

Festival marks Rattle’s arrival

Simon Rattle will launch his stint as music director of London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) this September with an

11-day festival. Titled ‘This is Rattle’ the special concert series includes his LSO debut at Barbican Hall on 14

September.

“It is a huge moment in my life to be able to return to the UK and work with the orchestra I love,” said Rattle. “My ambition

is to open up the electrifying experience of music and share my passion for music making with as many people as

possible, whatever their age or whatever their background.”

The opening concert features a world premiere of Helen

Grime’s Fanfare as well as Thomas Adès’ Asyla, Harrison

Birtwistle’s Violin Concerto, Oliver Knussen’s Symphony No

3 and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Rattle and the LSO are

joined by German violinist Christian Tetzlaff.

Then on 17 and 19 September Rattle leads LSO and London

Symphony Chorus in Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust,

followed by an evening of Stravinsky ballets (The Firebird,

Petrushka and The Rite of Spring) on 21 and 24 September.

The Stravinsky programme will also be performed at

Philharmonie de Paris on 22 September.

The opening concert will be broadcast live on a big screen at the Barbican’s Sculpture Court. All of the remaining LSO

concerts featuring Rattle will be broadcast or streamed by BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, Mezzo TV and Medici TV. The final

concert on Sunday 24 September will be live streamed on YouTube.

In addition to Rattle’s concerts there will also be four concerts programmed by British composers: Oliver Knussen (16

September), Thomas Adès (18 September), Helen Grimes (20 September) and Harrison Birtwistle (23 September).

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Meanwhile the Barbican hosts two This Is Rattle exhibitions. The Barbican Library will display a collection of photos and

memorabilia relating to the conductor’s career, while the Foyer features Interlock: Friends Pictured Within, a visual media

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Culture › Classical › Reviews

Richard Whitehouse | Monday 21 August 2017 10:31 BST | 0 comments

Prom 46, Schoenberg - Gurrelieder, Royal Albert Hall, London, review: Thomas Quasthoff almost inevitably stole the showThe LSO and Sir Simon Rattle perform Schoenberg’s 'Gurrelieder' but soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek and tenor Simon O’Neill as lovers Tove and Waldemar fell short

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Pàgina 1 de 8Prom 46, Schoenberg - Gurrelieder, Royal Albert Hall, London, review: Thom...

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Prom 46: Simon Rattle underlined the work’s potent expressive range without risk to its overall cohesion

More about: | The Proms| Royal Albert Hall

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If Gurrelieder seems as though made for the Albert Hall, this is

not merely to accommodate its vast choral and orchestral forces

but because its intricacy of texture needs room to breathe.

Tonight’s account encompassed the tonal and dynamic extremes

of Schoenberg’s ambitious cantata yet without neglecting that

human vulnerability, however well concealed, at its core.

Not that the performance was an unreserved success. Simon

O’Neill’s often edgy Waldemar lacked sufficient heroism, with

Eva-Maria Westbroek’s eloquent Tove hampered by unsteady

vibrato. Karen Cargill was a Wood-Dove of real pathos, while

there were persuasive cameos from Christopher Purves and

Peter Hoare as the affrighted Peasant and battle-wearied Klaus

the Fool. Thomas Quasthoff almost inevitably stole the show as

the magnetic Speaker in the ‘Wild Hunt’ melodrama, which

brings with it the most scintillating and provocative music.

A seasoned exponent, Simon Rattle underlined the work’s potent

expressive range without risk to its overall cohesion. Combined

choruses from London, Birmingham and Barcelona gave their

collective all, while the London Symphony Orchestra responded

with an energy though also dexterity that bodes well for when

Rattle becomes Music Director next month. Not a flawless

highlight of this current Proms season, maybe, but a highlight

nevertheless.

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