Who in their right mind today would write such a wildly ambitious Requiem? In addition to a requirement for a large choir, Berlioz’s orchestral forces demand four brass bands and a small shipping container of percussion. Essential to its performance is a building large enough to accommodate these extravagancies. In London, there is nowhere better than the Albert Hall, a setting virtually designed for its performance, one that provides immense space and resonance for the work’s juxtaposition of drama and solemnity, and one that can fulfil the composer’s instruction for the separate brass ensembles to be stationed “at the four corners of the grand group of choral singers and instrumentalists”.
That direction may have been satisfied at its 1837 Paris premiere in the cathedral of St. Louis des Invalides, a building especially chosen for its generous acoustic and elevated galleries. In this Prom performance, a batonless Sir Anthony Pappano rejected the idea of surround-sound brass, instead favouring two brass ensembles located between the massed timpani and some 250 singers from the London Symphony and BBC Symphony Choruses and a further two brass groups arranged behind the chorus. Such a plan privileged safety of coordination over spatial excitement, but the resulting impact from the forward-facing plan was still impressive. Impressive but not hair-raising for the ‘Tuba mirum’, where the men sounded somewhat distant and were almost overwhelmed by the sheer fire power from brass and 10 pairs of timpani. Berlioz’s apocalyptic vision of the Day of Judgement has to be terrifying and whilst this episode was visually arresting, it would have benefited from a dozen or so professional singers to create an even greater impression for its key moments. That said, the tenors may have been keeping something in reserve for the ‘Lacrimosa’ where they needed to harness all their vocal resources. Conscious of this, I suspect Pappano may have suggested the men kept their powder dry for the work’s later outbursts.
He certainly had the measure of the work, skilfully navigating his way through Berlioz’s polarities, finding an accommodation between the extremes of austerity and grandeur, and reconciling, as much as one can, the fusion of Classical and Romantic ideals that one commentator once referred to as “a ragbag of every type of church music from medieval polyphony to Rossini”. That Pappano treasured the work was evident in the attention to detail to the work’s ever-changing textures and timbres, shaping the phrases of the opening ‘Requiem’ and ‘Kyrie’ and outlining its gravitas with infinite care. Similarly, tenors and basses (and a haunting cor anglais) beguiled in the abbreviated phrase patterns of ‘Quid sum miser’. The commitment and sensitivity to the text was unmistakable, heard again later in the superbly blended a cappella ‘Quaerens me’, its intimacy beautifully wrought. No less refined was the four-part writing for men’s voices within the ‘Hostias’, its strikingly novel accompaniment of three flutes and bass trombones all wonderfully controlled.
And it was exemplary control that distinguished the French tenor Julien Henric for the ‘Sanctus’, taking in his stride the tessitura and soft dynamic, his final ‘Sabaoth’ wonderfully floated on a high B flat. It was a moment to cherish, as too the ethereal sound of numerous pairs of cymbals gently brushing against one another. After the rousing ‘Hosanna’s intimacy returned with the gathering momentum of the ‘Agnus Dei’, the men of the chorus showing no sign of fatigue and impressing in their quiet pleas for everlasting rest, seven timpanists adding to the petitions for salvation. Earlier, the ritualistic rise and fall of a semi-tone in the ‘Offertorium’ (the aural equivalent of counting rosary beads?) carried with it a sense of processional, its appeal for deliverance from the pains of Hell finely judged. And before that there was the rhythmic rigour in the ‘Lacrimosa’ with tenors bringing swagger if not quite enough heft, and instrumental colour provided by four tam tams. The ‘Dies irae’ had gripped with its wow factor, while ‘Rex tremendae’ unfolded from a steady maestoso to a gentle cantor, its growing urgency controlled even when consigning the dammed to sulphurous flames.
Arguably, the main temper of Pappano’s account was to communicate Berlioz’s lyrical qualities via warmth of sound and sculpted phrasing from players and singers alike. The work’s operatic elements and special effects were always going to look after themselves, yet the thrill of all the bombast underlined the beauty of the composer’s reflective passages, Pappano sensitive to the liturgical text associated and creating a performance of remarkable delicacy and refinement.
David Truslove
PROMS 2026: Pappano Conducts Berlioz’s ‘Requiem’
Hector Berlioz: Requiem (Grande messe des morts)
Julien Henric – tenor; BBC Symphony Chorus; London Symphony Chorus; London Symphony Orchestra; Sir Antonio Pappano – conductor
Royal Albert Hall, London, 15 August 2026
All photos by BBC/Chris Christodoulou