11th August 2023
Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom
LIGETI Requiem
LIGETI Lux aeterna
R. STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra
Jennifer France (soprano)
Clare Presland (mezzo-soprano)
Edvard Grieg Kor
Royal Northern College of Music Chamber Choir
London Philharmonic Choir
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Edward Gardner (conductor)
Ligeti celebration turned into a Stanley Kubrick homage evening - you know which pieces already - but I was told that both the Ligeti "Requiem" and R. Strauss' evergreen "Also sprach Zarathustra" were actually also used in the latest Barbie film. That explained all the selfie-taking and beer-drinking crowd tonight. Sound mass period Ligeti is something I only appreciate as I grow older. If you pay attention to the individual lines, they are highly ordered, finely constructed and incredibly expressive. If you then overlay them in a cascading manner, you generate a complex "micropolyphony" texture that Ligeti is famous for. At which point does over saturation of human emotions become stochastic noise? If we struggle to listen to it, is it more a biological limitation of human perception than the music being an intellectual mess? Hearing the "Introit" and especially the intricate "Kyrie" live is quite a spectacular experience. The terrifying and spiky "De die judicii sequentia" was ironically vindicated at the spot when a woman passed out half way. The soloists Jennifer France and Clare Presland were astonishing, punching their sharp lines through the atonal mass with little pitching help. I think the combined Edvard Grieg Kor, RNCM Chamber and LP choirs were a bit thin at the bass end of the vocal spectrum. Ligeti would have probably loved the joke of someone setting the alarm off at the last note of "Lacrimosa" (Ligeti himself apparently timed it with a stopclock when he watched "2001"). After the interval, Ligeti's choral transcendence experience was completed by "Lux aeterna" being sung from the Gallery in pitch dark. Seamless singing swirling under the roof of RAH. Very special experience. The Strauss that followed was a bit average, however. Big tunes, big gestures, nice phrasing and pace, it was a functional performance by the LPO under Edward Gardner, but I find places like the fugue in "Von der Wissenschaft" very murky and "Das Tanzlied" not invigorating enough, certainly being overshadowed by the preceding ecstatic climax of "Der Genesende". Not quite the transcendental übermensch journey Strauss envisaged, but I guess it's a potent antidote to Ligeti for most in the audience.
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