The great Requiems each have a different take on death and the afterlife. Mozart pleads eloquently to the Saviour, Verdi fills you with fear of the abyss, Britten contrasts the desired repose with the horrors that preceded it. Gabriel Fauré's Requiem is altogether different from any of these, a musical expression of total confidence in the salvation to come, a warm bath of music that envelops and soothes.
At least, that’s the musical experience. At the Barbican last night, the music was complemented by a film by Mat Collishaw which gave the artist’s very personal view of what “a good death” might be like. Collishaw’s path to heaven is a run down brutalist tower block through whose windows we are invited to watch some very old people on their deathbeds, in rooms that are small and plain but not uncomfortable, each surrounded by a few loved ones. Interspersed with this is video of rivers, representing our connection with the continuous stream of existence. In a reference to the Tibetan practice of sky burial, we are shown dead bodies in various stages of being scavenged by vultures.
This was carefully crafted, intense stuff, but it worked against the music rather than being inspired by it. The whole idea of human death equating to our being consumed by nature and recycled into it is the polar opposite of the Requiem’s focus on the intact soul meeting its Saviour. Nor did the images have any connection with the ebb and flow of Fauré’s music – only in the closing sequence, with Earth seen from space fading into a cloud of stars, did sound and vision come into harmony.
The choir, accentus, gave a polished performance. 33 singers is relatively modest number to take on a full orchestra, but there was never any sense that the choir were swamped or even straining to make themselves heard. Diction and engagement with the text were excellent both in Latin and in French and conductor Laurence Equilbey conjured some big dynamic contrasts, most notably in the big crescendo and release in the Sanctus. We had some very fine singing from the two soloists. Baritone John Brancy filled the hall with a burnished timbre in the Hostias and the Libera me, and 13-year-old Oliver Barlow reminded us of what a pleasure it can be to hear sacred music sung by a top quality boy treble.
The Insula Orchestra, however, didn’t impress. There were plenty of good elements – intonation, accuracy, dynamic control. But the overall timbre was overwhelmingly dark and the tread of the music decidedly slow. With the hall being in complete darkness to make the video projection visible, the whole proceedings had a sombre, funereal air. Yes, a Requiem is about death, but it shouldn’t be all gloom.
The Fauré was preceded by a French sacred work of similar length, Charles Gounod’s Saint François d’Assise, an oratorio in two parts representing the saint embracing Christ and then on his deathbed. It’s a far less familiar work because the manuscript was lost, resurfacing in a convent library in the 1990s. Gounod’s text is startlingly sensual, especially in the first half in which St Francis is using the language of carnal love to describe his feelings for Jesus – and the music follows suit. Tenor Amitai Pati gave a fervent rendering; Brancy, as the Cross personified, was disadvantaged by singing from the far corner of the stage behind both chorus and orchestra. Some nice harp playing provided relief from the dark orchestral palate.
