SCHOENBERG Gurrelieder
Eva-Maria Westbroek (Tove)
Simon O'Neill (Waldemar)
Karen Cargill (Wood-Dove)
Peter Hoare (Klaus the Fool)
Christopher Purves (Peasant)
Thomas Quasthoff (Speaker)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Orfeó Català
London Symphony Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle (conductor)
One returned to London at 4:30 am after sleeping for 4 hours only the day before, what should one do? Stand for 2 hours to listen to a massive hyper-Romantic cantata, obviously. Pre-atonal/duodecaphony Schoenberg is severely under-performed, but are they "overlooked" for good reasons, one wonders? Here we have an ambitious 3-part, 2-hour long cantata, fused with much erotic harmonies in Part 1 and sensational drama in Part 3 and the entire experience is a massive emotional roller-coaster. If one is after quick thrills, then the performance by the choruses and the LSO is hands-down 10 out of 5, for Simon Rattle (and Simon Halsey) extracted every last drop of torrential drama from the immensely complex score to generate waves after waves of eargasm. No one minds some additional endorphin and dopamine in the bloodstream, really, except one cannot help but think "Gurrelieder" is a rather patchy work. There are a lot of interesting individual ideas within the intricate texture, but they fly in every direction and do not gel. It did not help when the protagonist, Waldemar, was almost rendered inaudible by the overwhelming instrumental forces. The other soloists were polarising amongst the Proms regulars as well, especially Thomas Quasthoff's Sprechstimme (I personally rather enjoyed it), citing inadequate passion as the reason. I am unqualified to comment on any singing, but in any case, I am glad and feel privileged to be able to hear "Gurrelieder" live, but still walked out with a reinforced feeling that, unless you are Klaus Haymann, chances are it's one of those works that would have been completely forgotten if not for Schoenberg's later and significant contribution to music. There are some enchanting moments in it, but I'd rather be left in equal measures of awe and bafflement by the "Violin Concerto".
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