:00:13. > :00:19.Welcome back not Royal Albert Hall for one of the real highlight of
:00:19. > :00:21.the 2011 Proms season, the extraordinary combination of high
:00:21. > :00:31.operatic theatricality and deep religious faith that is Verdi's
:00:31. > :00:55.
:00:55. > :00:59.Verdi himself was here at the Royal Albert Hall for the first London
:00:59. > :01:03.performance of the Requiem. That was in 1875. The work was only a
:01:03. > :01:08.year old then and had already proven hugely controversial. There
:01:08. > :01:15.had been outcry over the theatrical nature of many of the sole lows and
:01:15. > :01:20.he had to get express permission from the archbishop in order to use
:01:20. > :01:28.women at the Premier of the St Mark's Cathedral in Milan. He got
:01:28. > :01:34.his way, but the women had to be hidden, wearing black dresses and
:01:34. > :01:38.mourning veils not to be too much of a distraction. Tonight's opera
:01:38. > :01:46.is in the hands of a man who is passionate about opera, Semyon
:01:46. > :01:53.Bychkov conducts. It is every time we come in contact
:01:53. > :01:59.with it, it is truly heartbreak. We know quite a few things about Verdi
:01:59. > :02:03.from his own letters and from the way in which he was remembered by
:02:03. > :02:11.his wife, for example, and people who came in contact with him. We
:02:11. > :02:16.know him to be - to have been a man of extraordinary qualities of
:02:16. > :02:23.character, very straight forward, very honest, a little bit severe
:02:23. > :02:29.and reserved, fiercely devoted to art, to his country, to life. He
:02:29. > :02:34.was actually a very rare breed of musician. From a technical point of
:02:34. > :02:39.view, 380 in the choir tonight, you have the BBC Symphony Orchestra,
:02:39. > :02:44.four soloists - how do you ensure the balance of the piece works so
:02:44. > :02:50.in music on such a great scale no detail is lost? You know, all music,
:02:50. > :02:54.in fact, when it is shared by more than, let's say, one individual,
:02:54. > :03:01.all music becomes chamber music, what we call - whether it is shared
:03:01. > :03:04.by two artists or shared by 2,000 artists, the principle is exactly
:03:04. > :03:08.the same: everyone who is involved needs to have a place for
:03:08. > :03:12.expression and needs to know what the other colleagues are expressing
:03:12. > :03:16.at the same time, so at any given time, someone will have to have a
:03:16. > :03:23.priority, and those priorities are shifting from chier to soloist,
:03:23. > :03:28.from one soloist to another, from orchestra to the chier, so there is
:03:28. > :03:31.a permanent, almost like a dialogue that is going on, and that comes
:03:31. > :03:36.almost from familiarity, and familiarity means time of having
:03:36. > :03:39.lived with this music. What I am particularly grateful for is what I
:03:39. > :03:44.deserved during the rehearsal period is that all members of the
:03:44. > :03:47.choir, all members of the orchestra, have exactly the same commitment to
:03:48. > :03:51.this music. You know, there is nothing more touching than when
:03:51. > :03:55.everybody seems to be equally committed in the degree of the work
:03:55. > :03:58.of art that we must interpret. That does not happen every time. It
:03:58. > :04:04.happens only in the most extraordinary circumstances. This
:04:04. > :04:09.music speaks to all, and therefore, you see in the eyes - you see it in
:04:09. > :04:15.the way in which they enunciate the text, in the way in which they
:04:15. > :04:19.phrase the music with their violins or trumpets or oboes. It doesn't
:04:19. > :04:23.really matter because those are just the instruments of expression.
:04:23. > :04:28.You see it in the human beings, and why do they do that? Because ever
:04:28. > :04:32.since they first heard it, they were so taken by it, and they
:04:32. > :04:38.identify so deeply with it, its subject and the man behind it.
:04:38. > :04:43.Semyon Bychkov talking to me earlier. As always, there are full
:04:43. > :04:49.details of our programme on the website. There you'll also find the
:04:49. > :04:53.names of every musician on stage tonight, including our 380-strong
:04:53. > :04:56.granted chorus. It's actually drawn from three separate choirs, who
:04:56. > :05:02.have been preparing for months ready for tonight's Prom. We have
:05:02. > :05:12.been catching up with one of those choirs, the BBC Symphony Orchestra
:05:12. > :05:17.
:05:17. > :05:21.and its chorus master Stephen Going out on to the stage at the
:05:21. > :05:25.Royal Albert Hall with that huge number of people, 380 people, it's
:05:26. > :05:31.just going to be exciting. This is just one of the biggest choral
:05:31. > :05:40.pieces you can be involved in. It's, for me, his opera that ever was.
:05:40. > :05:43.All the great Requiems, the Brahms, the Verdis, they only wrote one,
:05:43. > :05:47.but this is masterpiece. It's everything good about what Verdi
:05:47. > :05:54.has done. Bychkov is a great stickler for detail, so we went
:05:54. > :05:57.through it bar by bar, so what he gets will be very much to his
:05:57. > :06:02.specifications. Semyon Bychkov is very clear in his conducting, in
:06:02. > :06:09.his great care for detail. I shall be part of a huge force working
:06:09. > :06:16.under a great conductor in a hall at the Proms. That's what it means
:06:16. > :06:21.for me. The Verdi Requiem is the Requiem with the most, the most
:06:21. > :06:25.explosion of emotion. It's very much about how the choir presents
:06:25. > :06:29.the piece and how the emotion of the piece is visible in the pieces
:06:29. > :06:33.of the choir that'll have an effect on the audience. After all that
:06:33. > :06:38.preparation, the moment of truth is near. I have temporarily joined the
:06:38. > :06:44.extraordinary choir performing tonight, 380-strong, singers from
:06:44. > :06:54.the BBC National Chorus of Wales, the London Philharmonic Choir and
:06:54. > :06:55.
:06:55. > :06:59.the BBC Symphony Orchestra joined by 80 musicians from the BBC
:06:59. > :07:02.Symphony Orchestra to bring us the drama, passion and excitement of
:07:02. > :07:06.Verdi's Requiem. What an extraordinary place this is to
:07:06. > :07:11.stand as a performer looking out over the great circle of the Royal
:07:11. > :07:16.Albert Hall packed to capacity this evening - 6,000 people in here,
:07:16. > :07:20.1200 plus packing into the arena. The orchestra tuning, so I think
:07:20. > :07:23.it's time I left the stage and left all of these great professionals to
:07:23. > :07:32.get on with it. Ladies and gentlemen, have a wonderful evening.
:07:32. > :07:36.Have a great concert. Stephen Jackson, leader of the
:07:37. > :07:46.BBC's Symphony Orchestra, taking his position on the stage here at
:07:47. > :07:59.
:07:59. > :08:06.APPLAUSE And here are the soloists, Mariana
:08:06. > :08:13.Pencheva, Marina Poplavskaya, Joseph Calleja and Ferruccio
:08:13. > :08:17.Furianetto, and with them, Semyon Bychkov to conduct our mass choral
:08:17. > :08:27.forces, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and this Proms performance of
:08:27. > :08:27.
:08:27. > :31:54.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 5007 seconds
:31:54. > :32:01.So with an almost whispered prayer that represents an individual human
:32:01. > :32:04.being terrified and trembling before death, Verdi's Requiem
:32:04. > :32:09.reaches its conclusion. Semyon Bychkov conducted this Proms
:32:09. > :32:12.performance here at the Royal Albert Hall, where Verdi himself
:32:12. > :32:20.conducted the UK Premier 136 years ago.
:32:20. > :32:24.APPLAUSE I went to watch this performance
:32:24. > :32:32.from right up high in the gallery of the Royal Albert Hall, and what
:32:32. > :32:42.an amazing Proms night it's been, this great cathedral of music
:32:42. > :32:45.
:32:45. > :32:51.filled with something highly operatic, but also deeply religious.
:32:51. > :32:59.Russian soprano Mariana Pencheva, metzo rope ran know Marina
:32:59. > :33:05.Poplavskaya, Joseph Calleja and Italian bass Ferruccio Furianetto.
:33:05. > :33:10.What a cheer for the massed choral forces here at the Royal Albert
:33:10. > :33:18.Hall tonight - 380 of them who have been preparing and drilling
:33:18. > :33:23.themselves for months ready for tonight's performance. Chorus
:33:23. > :33:27.masters on the side of the stage there - Stephen Jackson, BBC
:33:27. > :33:31.Symphony Orchestra, Adrian Partington of the BBC National
:33:31. > :33:34.Chorus of Wales and Neville Creed, chorus master of the London
:33:34. > :33:38.Philharmonic Choir. APPLAUSE
:33:38. > :33:42.Well, that's it tonight from the Royal Albert Hall. Join us here on
:33:42. > :33:48.BBC Four on Friday when we'll have the fantastic Spaghetti Western
:33:48. > :33:54.Orchestra, and then next Sunday another chance to catch the Simon