0:00:27 > 0:00:29Tonight, the stage is set
0:00:29 > 0:00:32for Beethoven's late, great choral masterpiece,
0:00:32 > 0:00:33the Missa Solemnis.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36It was written at the same time as the Ninth Symphony,
0:00:36 > 0:00:40and in some ways its scale and ambition are greater even than that.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42The singers tackling this epic work
0:00:42 > 0:00:45will be in these seats in about 15 minutes -
0:00:45 > 0:00:46the Monteverdi Choir.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48Over the past 50 years,
0:00:48 > 0:00:51they have redefined the English choral tradition,
0:00:51 > 0:00:55creating something new, radical, and viscerally exciting.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58The Monties, as they are known, were founded by the legendary
0:00:58 > 0:01:00British conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner,
0:01:00 > 0:01:02and he has given us exclusive access
0:01:02 > 0:01:06to the rehearsal process for this concert, telling the story
0:01:06 > 0:01:10of what has made this choir unique across 50 years of innovation
0:01:10 > 0:01:12as they embark on this new chapter in their history -
0:01:12 > 0:01:14Beethoven at the BBC Proms.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23You know, there's certain really iconic works that
0:01:23 > 0:01:25you feel you're never done with,
0:01:25 > 0:01:28that you always need to revisit on a periodic basis,
0:01:28 > 0:01:31just to refresh your memory
0:01:31 > 0:01:36of the experience of struggling with the material so much, and I would say
0:01:36 > 0:01:39that the Missa Solemnis of Beethoven is one of those pieces.
0:01:39 > 0:01:41Shall we get singing?
0:01:41 > 0:01:46'You have to be alert and your radar has to be switched on
0:01:46 > 0:01:51'and your antennae have to be out on stalks in order for it to work.'
0:01:51 > 0:01:55# Kyrie eleison... #
0:01:55 > 0:02:00'Traditionally, the Missa Solemnis is performed with a massive chorus
0:02:00 > 0:02:04'and a big symphony orchestra and four rather operatic soloists.
0:02:04 > 0:02:06'My own way through is'
0:02:06 > 0:02:10to try and reconstruct, as far as possible, the colours
0:02:10 > 0:02:14and textures that Beethoven himself would have had in his inner ear.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Still too fluttery, it hasn't got enough core to it.
0:02:17 > 0:02:19Absolutely straight in, yeah?
0:02:19 > 0:02:21Two, one!
0:02:21 > 0:02:22# Kyrie... #
0:02:22 > 0:02:29'The vocal writing, when it's done with a huge chorus, can be imposing'
0:02:29 > 0:02:31and the emphasis on grandeur,
0:02:31 > 0:02:35but probably at the expense of the agility and the definition
0:02:35 > 0:02:39that you can get with a really small, hand-picked choir.
0:02:41 > 0:02:4250 years ago,
0:02:42 > 0:02:45Cambridge history undergraduate John Eliot Gardiner determined
0:02:45 > 0:02:50to mount a rare performance of a challenging and obscure choral work,
0:02:50 > 0:02:52Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610.
0:02:52 > 0:02:58# Domine, ad adjuvandum... #
0:02:58 > 0:03:02The aspiring young conductor had to take on the choral traditions
0:03:02 > 0:03:04and styles of the day.
0:03:04 > 0:03:07I couldn't get my head around the way
0:03:07 > 0:03:10everything sounded so much the same,
0:03:10 > 0:03:14didn't matter whether they were singing Palestrina or Stanford
0:03:14 > 0:03:16or Benjamin Britten, it was all the same, and then
0:03:16 > 0:03:21there were many other challenges - first of all, how to recruit a choir
0:03:21 > 0:03:24and from mostly Cambridge undergraduates who were
0:03:24 > 0:03:26frightfully well brought up
0:03:26 > 0:03:31and educated in a particularly euphonious style, these coruscales.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41I mean, this is a piece that I heard on the radio years before
0:03:41 > 0:03:48and I knew to be probably the most significant slice of church music
0:03:48 > 0:03:51that came out of Italy at the beginning of the 17th century,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54and it was still pretty well unknown then in the early '60s.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57He knew exactly the style and substance of the performance
0:03:57 > 0:04:01he was going to give, and his determination we should not sound
0:04:01 > 0:04:05like an English choir trying to sing Italian baroque music.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08He wanted us to be right there in the middle of it,
0:04:08 > 0:04:10being as Italian as we could.
0:04:10 > 0:04:12# Lauda
0:04:12 > 0:04:14# Lauda
0:04:14 > 0:04:18# Lauda Jerusalem, Dominum... #
0:04:18 > 0:04:24To have somebody challenge you time and again over one particular piece
0:04:24 > 0:04:28in an extremely demanding and uncompromising way,
0:04:28 > 0:04:30was, in fact, most exciting.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37He was tireless in getting us to rehearse
0:04:37 > 0:04:40and saying, "No, no, no, I want you to do it this way. Make that bigger,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43"exaggerate that, make it bright,
0:04:43 > 0:04:47"don't sing 'Gloria', sing 'Glaw-ria'", you know,
0:04:47 > 0:04:52trying to Italianise a complete generation of English
0:04:52 > 0:04:54- Anglican choral scholars. - And it worked.- Yeah.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56It worked fantastically well.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58I don't think any of us who were there at the beginning
0:04:58 > 0:05:03will ever forget the impact of that extraordinary occasion.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08I mean, however imperfect that first performance of the Vespers was
0:05:08 > 0:05:13on 5th March, 1964, it really was like a Bunsen burner.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16It lit a flame and there was no turning back for me after that,
0:05:16 > 0:05:20and I was so fortunate that the Monteverdi Choir, which had grown
0:05:20 > 0:05:23out of that first performance, was my laboratory, really.
0:05:26 > 0:05:28Throughout the '70s and '80s,
0:05:28 > 0:05:33the Monteverdi Choir established itself as a pioneering force.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37Core to its identity was the forensic reappraisal
0:05:37 > 0:05:42of lesser-known works of Renaissance and Baroque masters such as Schutz,
0:05:42 > 0:05:44Rameau and Handel.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48That sort of choral singing was ground-breaking then,
0:05:48 > 0:05:51and, and, the repertoire
0:05:51 > 0:05:54that they were presented with as it was performed
0:05:54 > 0:05:57was something that we hadn't, we hadn't, as singers,
0:05:57 > 0:06:00been involved in, and neither had the public.
0:06:00 > 0:06:03It's that liveliness that other people didn't have.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06I mean, English music was ploddy and slow
0:06:06 > 0:06:08and all of a sudden it made sense.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12- And it's so vitally alive, always.- Absolutely.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16We were doing something that really was new at the time.
0:06:16 > 0:06:21We were creating the equivalent of a kind of team of athletes,
0:06:21 > 0:06:23vocal athletes.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27John Eliot, I think, possibly might have pioneered having male altos,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30countertenors, and female altos on the same alto line.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39You have that nice, wonderful quality of the female alto,
0:06:39 > 0:06:43and then a little bit more grit in the middle of the male countertenor.
0:06:43 > 0:06:45How should you describe it?
0:06:45 > 0:06:47Absolutely, yes, I think gritty, really.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50And it actually worked really well,
0:06:50 > 0:06:52it was an interesting sound and it seemed to work.
0:06:52 > 0:06:57There was a sense that we were not only doing repertoire that
0:06:57 > 0:06:59very few other groups were doing,
0:06:59 > 0:07:02but doing it in a way that made people really sit up.
0:07:11 > 0:07:16In 1989, the singers took the Vespers to the Basilica of St Mark's
0:07:16 > 0:07:20in Venice, where Monteverdi had been maestro di cappella.
0:07:20 > 0:07:25A hallmark of the Monteverdi Choir is matching music with architecture,
0:07:25 > 0:07:28out of the comfort of the concert hall,
0:07:28 > 0:07:32into spaces that let the music resonate anew.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35He hears space resonate
0:07:35 > 0:07:39and he hears music create space.
0:07:40 > 0:07:45When you get music and churches, music and architecture together,
0:07:45 > 0:07:48something extraordinary can happen. It doesn't always happen.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52You get to a building that is revered as a heritage site
0:07:52 > 0:07:54and yet it feels flat inside,
0:07:54 > 0:07:58it feels kind of as though its batteries have collapsed.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03Bring music that's appropriate to that building
0:08:03 > 0:08:06and extraordinary things happen.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14By exploiting the architecture of St Mark's,
0:08:14 > 0:08:15its many cupolas and galleries,
0:08:15 > 0:08:20John Eliot Gardiner brought Monteverdi's theatrical score to life.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30We had to record all night
0:08:30 > 0:08:34because outside in the Piazza, there are two bands.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38Florian's and Quadri's are the cafes and they play until about 1am.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40They play waltzes and things.
0:08:40 > 0:08:42And so we had to wait for them to finish,
0:08:42 > 0:08:46so our recordings were done between 1am and 6am
0:08:46 > 0:08:49and to have that music in an empty St Mark's,
0:08:49 > 0:08:52being able to walk around the top galleries
0:08:52 > 0:08:54and being able to be spaced out
0:08:54 > 0:08:56among all the little domes and mosaics,
0:08:56 > 0:09:00and then to walk out into St Mark's Square as the sun was coming up
0:09:00 > 0:09:02with not a soul in the square
0:09:02 > 0:09:03was pretty special.
0:09:15 > 0:09:17The journey hasn't always been easy.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21Behind every performance have been hours of painstaking preparation
0:09:21 > 0:09:24and a lot of hard graft.
0:09:24 > 0:09:29It's going two or three steps beyond what you thought you could do.
0:09:29 > 0:09:34He demanded everything, and everything you'd got.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36You didn't coast in the Monteverdi Choir.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41Those of them that find it too hot, the intensity,
0:09:41 > 0:09:43they have to get out of the kitchen,
0:09:43 > 0:09:48and some do, but those that stay are the ones who...
0:09:48 > 0:09:54who give so much, they're so generous, generous-spirited, and...
0:09:55 > 0:09:58That's unbelievably touching and hugely rewarding.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01It means that one is constantly planning for the future.
0:10:01 > 0:10:03MUSIC: "Dixit Dominus" by Handel
0:10:03 > 0:10:05THEY SING STACCATO
0:10:10 > 0:10:13The rehearsal periods are so intense.
0:10:13 > 0:10:15He's never about dots and notes.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19I think John Eliot is looking for,
0:10:19 > 0:10:23"What's the truth of this music?" And you know it when you find it.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33'It's like peeling an onion, how one skin comes after another
0:10:33 > 0:10:34'and you get closer'
0:10:34 > 0:10:37and closer to what you feel to be
0:10:37 > 0:10:40the essence of the experience and of the music.
0:10:40 > 0:10:44That's good. The danger is that those staccatos can sound like laughter
0:10:44 > 0:10:46and the whole thing can sound like
0:10:46 > 0:10:50a ghoulish kind of mockery of what's going on, and actually,
0:10:50 > 0:10:53it's, "He shall hit..." It's very, very strong.
0:10:53 > 0:10:54It's extremely strong.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57All his enemies are going to be trampled into the earth.
0:10:57 > 0:10:59Yeah? Two, three, one.
0:10:59 > 0:11:01# Con-quas-sa... #
0:11:01 > 0:11:05No. Keep it really staccato, really, so every one is a hammer blow.
0:11:05 > 0:11:06And...
0:11:06 > 0:11:09- # Con-quas-sa - Con-quas-sa
0:11:09 > 0:11:10# Con-quas-sa
0:11:10 > 0:11:12- # Con-quas-sa - Con-quas-sa... #
0:11:12 > 0:11:15- It's never, "Oh, well, you've done it now, it's done."- No.
0:11:15 > 0:11:17"See you at the gig." It can always be better.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20There's always something that can be improved.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22Pretty, but it doesn't have any emotion.
0:11:22 > 0:11:24It's just, it's just candyfloss.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27THEY SING GENTLY
0:11:40 > 0:11:44That's better. It could still be more sensual, couldn't it?
0:11:44 > 0:11:48You remember the wonderful Rubens Adoration of the Magi,
0:11:48 > 0:11:52the very precocious, large-buttocked Lady Madonna,
0:11:52 > 0:11:56but you know, she is the mother figure in contrast to
0:11:56 > 0:12:00this emaciated, shrivelled-up,
0:12:00 > 0:12:04gnarled corpse of a body that's hanging on the tree,
0:12:04 > 0:12:08and there she is, grieving, all of her grieving, big-bodied grieving.
0:12:08 > 0:12:10Let's hear it.
0:12:10 > 0:12:11Go.
0:12:16 > 0:12:21He's giving us images, so we're thinking of
0:12:21 > 0:12:26all kinds of ideas that have resonances with other kinds of media
0:12:26 > 0:12:30like touch or colour.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33- And everyone moves with it. - It's like Total Football.
0:12:33 > 0:12:37You know, it's 11 players, but every player is almost thinking with
0:12:37 > 0:12:40the same mind as every other player.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45'I don't think I was ever interested just to paddle light,'
0:12:45 > 0:12:47to replicate the same repertoire.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50I was always looking for new challenges for myself,
0:12:50 > 0:12:53but also new challenges for the musicians I was working with,
0:12:53 > 0:12:58because I reckon that's how to engage their loyalty
0:12:58 > 0:13:01and their interest, and also their development.
0:13:05 > 0:13:09The year 2000 saw the choir take on its biggest challenge to date -
0:13:09 > 0:13:12performances spread over a single year
0:13:12 > 0:13:16of all 198 of Bach's church cantatas,
0:13:16 > 0:13:19some of his most dramatic choral music.
0:13:20 > 0:13:25My starting point with the choir during that cantata year was to get
0:13:25 > 0:13:30them to be as utterly familiar with the words as they possibly could be.
0:13:30 > 0:13:32Text, text, text.
0:13:32 > 0:13:38That's what we have as singers that is different from instrumentalists.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41We have text, and we have the ability to express that
0:13:41 > 0:13:45through song and music, and that's really quite incredible.
0:13:51 > 0:13:55The words are the fuel that makes the motor hum.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57Sometimes Bach colludes with the text,
0:13:57 > 0:14:00Lutheran words, pious words.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03At other times, he goes his own way,
0:14:03 > 0:14:07he goes at an oblique angle towards the text.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13Infusing text with drama
0:14:13 > 0:14:16is a crucial aspect of the choir's approach
0:14:16 > 0:14:20and their versatility has opened unexpected doors.
0:14:20 > 0:14:23I was always interested, right from the word go,
0:14:23 > 0:14:27with the Monteverdi Choir, to get them out of their concert gear
0:14:27 > 0:14:32and onto the opera platform, because I reckon it would free them up
0:14:32 > 0:14:35and it would make them far less inhibited
0:14:35 > 0:14:38and also it would bring something quite different.
0:14:45 > 0:14:49I was singing in the chorus in Carmen, and one of the things
0:14:49 > 0:14:52I most enjoyed, actually, was putting on the gypsy outfits!
0:14:52 > 0:14:55And swanning around in swishy skirts.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Liberation and a sense of movement
0:15:02 > 0:15:06is a very good counterbalance to the sort of cerebral approach.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13So it's not just a musical experience,
0:15:13 > 0:15:17it's also very much a theatrical one the whole time,
0:15:17 > 0:15:19but that in turn feeds into what you do musically,
0:15:19 > 0:15:22so you've got a springboard the whole time, a natural springboard.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26The drama of opera is in everything we do.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29It is absolutely taken back to the bare bones, primary colours.
0:15:32 > 0:15:37It's just got to be high quality, high calibre all the time,
0:15:37 > 0:15:40but if it lacks personality, then it's not the Monteverdi Choir.
0:15:46 > 0:15:52The most essential kind of repertoire for the choir
0:15:52 > 0:15:56is unaccompanied choral music,
0:15:56 > 0:15:58polyphony by any other name.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04It's when the choir is at its most exposed, at its most vulnerable.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12Performing music in the country or landscape in which it was composed
0:16:12 > 0:16:16is yet another aspect of the choir's aesthetic,
0:16:16 > 0:16:21and 2004 saw John Eliot Gardiner and his singers pack their hiking boots
0:16:21 > 0:16:25to tread one of the oldest, most famous of the pilgrimage routes,
0:16:25 > 0:16:29the road to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31We were doing music of what they call
0:16:31 > 0:16:35the Siglo d'Oro, their Golden Age,
0:16:35 > 0:16:40the age of Victoria, Morales, Guerrero, Alonso di Lobo.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43We walked some of the way.
0:16:43 > 0:16:48We went the rest of it in buses, and we did 17 concerts in three weeks.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51That particular pilgrimage,
0:16:51 > 0:16:56for me, was just a great moment in proving, after we had done operas
0:16:56 > 0:17:01and various things, that suddenly there was this choir
0:17:01 > 0:17:06that could be really honed down to being just choral,
0:17:06 > 0:17:09no backing off, you were on display.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15There is a built-in reticence
0:17:15 > 0:17:19that this music doesn't need interpretation,
0:17:19 > 0:17:23it just needs to unfold in beautiful euphony.
0:17:23 > 0:17:25To me, that's utter bunkum.
0:17:25 > 0:17:27There's much, much more.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30There's more kind of seething stuff bubbling underneath
0:17:30 > 0:17:33the surface of the music that can be brought out.
0:17:35 > 0:17:41Drama, religious, fiery fervour, and melancholy, all these things.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45You're talking about extremes - extremes of dynamics,
0:17:45 > 0:17:48extremes of emotion, extremes of vowel colour.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51Sometimes a kind of gasping or a sighing in the sound
0:17:51 > 0:17:53or, you know, a sob, a weep.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01I'm sitting next to one of the violinists in the orchestra
0:18:01 > 0:18:03on a flight recently,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06and she described the sound of the choir as being like a silver dagger,
0:18:06 > 0:18:10and she said, "I don't hear that sound anywhere else."
0:18:16 > 0:18:18You realise that all the things
0:18:18 > 0:18:22that have made him one of our great conductors worldwide,
0:18:22 > 0:18:27he knew then, as a 20-year-old, exactly where he was going.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30He knew which route his journey was going to take,
0:18:30 > 0:18:32and the great thing is, he took us all on it.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37It may seem like just a banality,
0:18:37 > 0:18:40but there is a tremendous sense of pride in that
0:18:40 > 0:18:42of going through the trenches together
0:18:42 > 0:18:44and coming out the other side,
0:18:44 > 0:18:49they really are a battle-hardened team of musical athletes.
0:18:49 > 0:18:54'And I find that hugely moving, actually.'
0:18:54 > 0:18:58Syncopations, please, sopranos and altos, in bar 322.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00# Dum-dee... #
0:19:00 > 0:19:02Just nudge them a bit more. And...
0:19:03 > 0:19:08For tonight's concert, the choir are, as ever, hard at work
0:19:08 > 0:19:11to bring Beethoven's epic Missa Solemnis to life.
0:19:14 > 0:19:18'Beethoven was in his 50s when he wrote the Missa Solemnis
0:19:18 > 0:19:22'and in a way, it's a sort of omnium gatherum.
0:19:22 > 0:19:29'It collects all the previous experiments that he had made.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34'It suggests that his very uneasy relationship'
0:19:34 > 0:19:37with the Catholic Church and its rituals
0:19:37 > 0:19:42was something that he had to confront and, in a way, escape from
0:19:42 > 0:19:45because in the end, it's a piece of concert music.
0:19:45 > 0:19:49To me, there is a dangerous and very unstable side to Beethoven,
0:19:49 > 0:19:52which is revealed in the Missa Solemnis.
0:19:52 > 0:19:55It's incredibly urgent, coruscating stuff,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58and every single time, there are new things to discover
0:19:58 > 0:20:00and new ways of approaching it.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03I mean, the summit is still the same, Everest is still there,
0:20:03 > 0:20:04this is his Everest.
0:20:04 > 0:20:09But there may be different paths going up to the same peak.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12And the same sense of exhilaration when you get to the top.
0:20:12 > 0:20:17Ultimately, it doesn't have answers, this piece, it has lots of questions.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21What he's saying at the end is, "I've shown you the journey,
0:20:21 > 0:20:24"I've shown you my personal journey, now it's over to you."
0:20:24 > 0:20:26APPLAUSE
1:21:20 > 1:21:22MUSIC ENDS
1:36:41 > 1:36:43APPLAUSE
1:37:01 > 1:37:04"From the heart - may it return to the heart!"
1:37:04 > 1:37:08The words Beethoven wrote on the first page of his Missa Solemnis,
1:37:08 > 1:37:12performed tonight at the BBC Proms by the Monteverdi Choir.
1:37:15 > 1:37:17APPLAUSE CONTINUES
1:37:27 > 1:37:30Rapturous applause from the audience here at the Royal Albert Hall
1:37:30 > 1:37:35as Sir John Eliot Gardiner returns to the stage with his soloists,
1:37:35 > 1:37:38the soprano, Lucy Crowe, mezzo soprano, Jennifer Johnston,
1:37:38 > 1:37:42tenor, Michael Spyres, and bass, Matthew Rose.
1:37:42 > 1:37:46The Monteverdi Choir taking their bow,
1:37:46 > 1:37:49and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique.
1:37:54 > 1:37:57Well, what a way to celebrate your 50th birthday.
1:37:57 > 1:38:02The Monteverdi Choir partying in high style here at the BBC Proms.
1:38:02 > 1:38:05Do stay tuned to BBC Four this evening, as later on tonight,
1:38:05 > 1:38:08at 10.15pm, we'll be back live at the Royal Albert Hall
1:38:08 > 1:38:13for a Late Night Prom with Paloma Faith and the Guy Barker Orchestra.
1:38:13 > 1:38:17But for now, from all of us here, good night.