VoxCarnyx

City Halls, Glasgow

I’ve no idea what Thursday’s live broadcast performance of Verdi’s Requiem by the BBC SSO and Edinburgh Festival Chorus sounded like over the airwaves – though it’s easy enough to find out by dialling it up on BBC Sounds – but in the flesh, in the limited acoustical sound box that is Glasgow City Halls, and untamed by production tricks, it veered close on its mightiest occasions to deafening. That won’t be the case on Sunday, when the same performers under SSO chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth repeat this showpiece work in the spaciousness of Edinburgh’s Usher Hall.

That said, reservations lay not entirely with bricks and mortar. What Wigglesworth gave us on Thursday evening was a Verdi Requiem rich in golden moments, at times particularly thought-provoking, but which was otherwise erratic in its piecing together of what is essentially fluent impassioned opera dressed in sacred concert hall formality. 

The very opening was full of theatrical promise – the slow, considered cello motif faintly whispered, embracing a brooding, mysterious tone from which the opening Introit and Kyrie looked set to rise and fall with mountainous persuasion before the ensuing Dies Irae, with its savage drums, venomous energy and protracted drama. 

The full-bodied Festival Chorus, trained by its director James Grossmith, was instantly impressive, wholesome and confident, wide ranging in its expressive power, diction crystal clear. Enter, too, the solo vocal quartet, notable initially for the piercing operatic tenor of Antonio Poli, to which soprano Miah Persson, mezzo soprano Alice Coote and bass William Thomas added both their corporate heft and, where it mattered, intuitive sparks of individuality. The SSO responded dutifully with supportive playing and matching sumptuousness, despite the brass being actively encouraged to overwhelm the chorus. 

All this gave Wigglesworth scope to add his own thoughts – glimpses of often ignored orchestral detail he felt needed emphasis, though some were more awkwardly manufactured than naturally emergent; weighted tempi that, when judiciously applied, magically drew breath. What we didn’t always get was a sense of complete organic synergy – the SSO left ever so slightly behind the beat at times – or sufficient seamless vision to give the piece its macro-visceral grip.

The later, shorter movements produced the same peppering of delights: the soloists revelling in the transformational piety of the Offertory; an ecstatic choral Hosanna to round off the Sanctus and Benedictus (despite its exquisitely busy violin countermelody – the icing on the cake – being barely audible); the spiritual awe and intensity of the Lux Aeterna, including a dynamic floor show from the double basses whose synchronous, animated pizzicato resembled an archery display; and then the Libera Me, its gorgeous a cappella “Requiem Aeternam”, Persson soaring ethereally above, like a precious preparatory moment before the work’s exhaustive, final plea for deliverance. 

If this was a performance that occasionally seemed one rehearsal short of complete readiness, Sunday afternoon’s repeat at the Usher Hall should redeem that. And there. of course, the brass can let off steam without causing any offence.

Ken Walton