Battle of the choirs

Thursday night with Jason and Paul; The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in The Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Leonard Slatkin playing The Planets Suite by Holst, and Belshazzar’s Feast by Walton.

Wow…. Wow wow wow wow wow.

I mean, I love The Planets, I know it backwards, so it was always going to be a really enjoyable night for me. But hearing it live, seeing the French horns, watching the two sets of kettle drums being beaten to within an inch of their lives, and feeling the reverberating pure SOUND of the organ in the Albert… wow. We even had the final women’s chorus coming from up in the gods – the Albert is about 5 or 6 stories high, and has a viewing promenade on the top level, and the women were way up there, with their backs to us, singing into the void, so it echoed brilliantly, and they walked away still singing in a physical fade out… it was amazing.

Slatkin seems to prefer the 19th century style of orchestra set up with the second violins directly opposite the first, the cellos and violas sandwiched in between. The more common way is to have firsts, seconds, violas and cellos in a fan in that order around the conductor. But the older arrangement gave a more balanced sound to my mind, especially in a piece which has so much juggling of the melody between sections. Oh dear…I am afraid my years of playing in an orchestra are showing. I really am not a music critic! It worked and was lovely, so that is all that matters!

Belshazzar’s Feast (a piece, to my knowledge, I’ve never hear before), requires two full choirs, and two extra compliments of brass. It is an oratorio about the death of the King of Babylon when he is disrespectful of the Jews sacred objects, and it was amazing.

The choirs (probably about 2 to 3 hundred people!) were positioned on either side of the organ and the extra brass sections were positioned in the boxes to either side of the stage. Throughout the piece, the orchestra sections and choirs play catch with the tune, bouncing it from one side of the hall to the other, from one choir to the other and this gave a remarkable stereo effect the music. It really was almost surround sound.

The impact of two choirs, three brass sections and the full power of the hall organ was incredible. We were overwhelmed by sound. At one point the choirs sing the single word ‘Slain’ in unison, and it pierces your heart, so loud, so sudden and so violent is the chord. It was really wonderful. Wow.

Thanks again for that Jase. A truly spectacular evening.