Faure Requiem

:00:35. > :00:49.Wellcome tonight's Prom. We have Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate to

:00:50. > :00:56.open, Heiden's mass in Time of War, and Gabriel Faure. And pretty much

:00:57. > :01:02.the world's top performers with us tonight, the Orchestra of the Age of

:01:03. > :01:05.Enlightenment and a stellar cast of soloist, plus some rather classy

:01:06. > :01:10.company up here with me in the gods at the Royal Albert Hall, in the

:01:11. > :01:16.shape of wine connoisseur extraordinaire Oz Clarke. A warm

:01:17. > :01:20.welcome to the Proms. I did not know you were a singer and a performer.

:01:21. > :01:25.When did you start singing? Long before I started on wine, I started

:01:26. > :01:30.at the age of eight, I was a Canterbury chorister, I had a choral

:01:31. > :01:35.scholarship at Kings, went to Oxford and sang there, and then I went off

:01:36. > :01:38.and did the Academy of sent martins, I used to sing with the Monteverde

:01:39. > :01:45.choir, I sang West End shows like Sweeney Todd, and then I sort of

:01:46. > :01:49.stopped. And that is a long, long time ago, it is about time I got

:01:50. > :01:53.going again. We have some fantastic choral music for you tonight. We

:01:54. > :02:01.have this wonderful Mozart, Exsultate, Jubilate, the Heiden

:02:02. > :02:07.mass, the requiem. I am looking forward to the Exsultate, Jubilate,

:02:08. > :02:17.I don't know how he gets so much into 40 minutes. As a choir boy, I

:02:18. > :02:27.always wanted to sing PA Jesu. I wanted to sing like Maria Callas. I

:02:28. > :02:31.kept thinking that I wanted to do it, we never did 19th-century stuff

:02:32. > :02:36.at Canterbury, we had a long period of tight cathedral music, Gibbons

:02:37. > :02:43.and Thalys and all those people. The idea of doing the requiem was almost

:02:44. > :02:47.too thrilling to believe, and when you heard the Pie Jesu, I wanted

:02:48. > :02:54.that. We might even have had a horn doing it. And we have a woman doing

:02:55. > :02:58.the Exsultate, Jubilate, the fabulous soloist, Lucy Crowe, who

:02:59. > :03:07.told me she is quite nervous. It is a full on police. I remember Kiri Te

:03:08. > :03:13.Kanawa are doing it a long time ago, and it is relentless,

:03:14. > :03:24.individualistic, the Sting with challenging bit, but great tunes. Oz

:03:25. > :03:27., we will catch up later. Let's start with Mozart's Exsultate,

:03:28. > :03:39.Jubilate, he wrote it just before his 17th birthday. It was written

:03:40. > :03:43.for the Italian castrato Venanzio Rauzzini.

:03:44. > :03:50.APPLAUSE So,

:03:51. > :03:56.APPLAUSE For Stephen Kelly Bree joining the

:03:57. > :03:57.Orchestra of the age of Enlightenment, and Lucy Crowe, a

:03:58. > :04:18.fabulous voice. -- Stephen Cleobury. MUSIC: Exsultate,

:04:19. > :18:06.Jubilate by WA Mozart Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate,

:18:07. > :18:12.opening tonight's Prom here at the Royal Albert Hall. The beautiful

:18:13. > :18:22.bell-like clarity of Lucy Crowe's voice. She is such a captivating

:18:23. > :18:25.performer. Stephen Cleobury with her. Along with The Orchestra of the

:18:26. > :19:01.Age of the Enlightenment. Lucy Crowe, who cites two big female

:19:02. > :19:08.stars as her inspiration - Maria Callas and Madonna. She says she's

:19:09. > :19:21.an independent, strong, powerful woman.

:19:22. > :19:30.I loved that. Your reaction, Oz? Thrilling. 17 when he wrote that?

:19:31. > :19:36.16, not even 17. Isn't it hateful? What I loved about Lucy's

:19:37. > :19:43.performance, it was so fresh. There was a fantastic youthful, confident

:19:44. > :19:52.vivacity about it. That is also to do with this orchestra, the OAE.

:19:53. > :19:56.They want to try and play it in the style of the composers of that time.

:19:57. > :20:00.I think that freshness comes across? Yeah, Mozart would have been

:20:01. > :20:06.delighted. Stephen Cleobury is a man... Did you work with him in

:20:07. > :20:13.Oxford? No, it was his brother, who is a great friend of mine. I have

:20:14. > :20:18.been working with him forever. I still do Lord's Taverners things

:20:19. > :20:22.with him around Christmas time. You have had a 30-year break from

:20:23. > :20:29.singing and you are back doing what singing and drinking, you are doing

:20:30. > :20:33.live gigs? Yes, we are doing wine and music. We do these concerts. We

:20:34. > :20:37.have come back from Cheltenham. We had a fantastic success there. We

:20:38. > :20:42.have come back from a standing ovation at Harrogate yesterday. And

:20:43. > :20:48.we do wine drinking and beautiful Baroque music. It is everything you

:20:49. > :20:51.love. Everything I love. And I get to stand on the stage and people

:20:52. > :20:59.listen to me and they laugh at my jokes! Not tonight! I will talk to

:21:00. > :21:05.you in a minute. Next, we have Haydn's Mass in Time of War. This is

:21:06. > :21:16.written against a background of violence sweeping across Europe.

:21:17. > :21:19.It's known as the Paukenmesse, or Timpani Mass. The drums give it a

:21:20. > :21:26.military flavour and the whole tone of the piece is a protest against

:21:27. > :21:32.war and bloodshed. It ends with a chorus Donna Nobis Pacem - Grant Us

:21:33. > :21:38.Peace. An impressive line-up of soloists. Lucy Crowe is back with

:21:39. > :21:42.the mezzo-soprano, Paula Murrihy, the tenor, Robin Tritschler, and the

:21:43. > :21:45.baritone, Roderick Williams. Conducting them all Stephen

:21:46. > :21:51.Cleobury, with The Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment already on

:21:52. > :21:55.stage. The choir of King's College Cambridge here, too.

:21:56. > :58:58.Haydn's Mass in Time of War, performed here at the 2016 BBC Proms

:58:59. > :59:08.by the soprano Lucy Crowe, the mezzo, Paula Murrihy, the tenor was

:59:09. > :59:14.Robin Tritschler, the baritone was Roderick Williams, and the choir of

:59:15. > :59:17.King's College Cambridge, conducted by their Music Director, Stephen

:59:18. > :59:57.Cleobury. Worth saying, Oz, timpanist did a

:59:58. > :00:03.fantastic job. From the first beat, Stephen Cleobury put his hands up

:00:04. > :00:10.and bang in came the timpany. I thought it was going to be a fest,

:00:11. > :00:33.and it was not. It was beautifully done altogether.

:00:34. > :00:45.Well, Hayden himself was a chorister at Saint Stephens in Vienna, and the

:00:46. > :00:50.choirmaster had him all lined up for the operation that he could become a

:00:51. > :00:51.castrato, but fortunately for all of us, he became a fine composer

:00:52. > :01:06.instead. This choir has such a global

:01:07. > :01:12.reputation for just the most beautiful sound. You have boy

:01:13. > :01:16.choristers aged between nine and 13, then the choral scholars. I know

:01:17. > :01:23.when you were singing at Canterbury, there was the traditional rivalry,

:01:24. > :01:32.Kings, Cambridge and Canterbury. Who is better? Canterbury, quite

:01:33. > :01:37.clearly! Some years, we had such a thrilling choir, we could have

:01:38. > :01:42.beaten anyone in the world, and it is competitive, but year by year, I

:01:43. > :01:49.watch and listen to these guys every year, and I think Stephen Cleobury

:01:50. > :01:54.has done such a good job of keeping a smoothness of interpretation and

:01:55. > :01:58.impression with completely different personnel every year. That is

:01:59. > :02:02.difficult to handle, to have a bespoke sound for your choir that is

:02:03. > :02:07.recognisably yours, with a changeover of personnel all the

:02:08. > :02:09.time. Certainly in the undergraduates, there are some

:02:10. > :02:13.thrilling singers coming through, you meet them later as soloists,

:02:14. > :02:22.with enormous amount of personality in their voices, but when they are

:02:23. > :02:26.at King's, it gets subsumed into that style. How would you define as

:02:27. > :02:32.somebody who has been at the centre of it, the English choral sound.

:02:33. > :02:36.What is it? For me, it is something to do with the way that the sound

:02:37. > :02:39.rises and fills through great transepts and knaves and choirs in

:02:40. > :02:45.the cathedrals and churches in this country. It is something we are very

:02:46. > :02:51.lucky to have such a strong tradition with. It is one of those

:02:52. > :02:58.sounds that cuts across race, age, class. It is something which if you

:02:59. > :03:02.just open your heart and mind, it is a thrilling chance to explore more

:03:03. > :03:08.of yourself, and find a spirituality which even the most cynical person

:03:09. > :03:15.has inside them. Speaking of finding that moment in yourself, Stephen

:03:16. > :03:18.Cleobury has a boy soprano solo coming up later, he has several

:03:19. > :03:23.people lined up men he will choose who he wants. Did you ever get that

:03:24. > :03:27.solo moment in the spotlight, and what is it like I was like the

:03:28. > :03:34.pressure must be enormous. I don't think he tells them before they

:03:35. > :03:39.start, he has several lined up and he suddenly says, you! Did you have

:03:40. > :03:47.the call? Yes, once at Canterbury, one of us was going to sing Once In

:03:48. > :03:55.Royal David City, and he suddenly said, Clark, it is you. And off I

:03:56. > :04:04.went, and I gave a rather bravura performance. But you don't get to

:04:05. > :04:08.fret for too long. Speaking of star solos, we have already heard the

:04:09. > :04:13.wonderful voice of Lucy Crowe, one of this country's brightest singing

:04:14. > :04:18.stars. She got her first break into the world of opera back in 2007 when

:04:19. > :04:22.she stood in at the last minute at the English National Opera. She had

:04:23. > :04:28.only recently left music college, but she stole the show. The

:04:29. > :04:31.baritone, Roderick Williams, was of course, Oxford, who trained as a

:04:32. > :04:36.teacher and in his late 20s embarked on a career as a singer. Today he is

:04:37. > :04:42.an international star. He is now backstage preparing for his part in

:04:43. > :04:48.the Faure Requiem. We caught up with them after rehearsals. We were

:04:49. > :04:52.talking earlier about how we approach sacred music, and we are

:04:53. > :04:57.not particularly religious, but you don't have to be able to project and

:04:58. > :05:02.perform the music to your best ability and the way it needs to be.

:05:03. > :05:06.I think the music does speak for itself, particularly this

:05:07. > :05:10.understated style that Faure has, the heightened jubilate Shin, the

:05:11. > :05:14.exuberance of the Mozart, as well. You don't feel you have to put too

:05:15. > :05:22.much else into it to try to communicate it in some special way.

:05:23. > :05:32.You have quite a lot to sing, how do you find it? It might feel like a

:05:33. > :05:37.lot in one sense, but when you have finished that Mozart, you have some

:05:38. > :05:43.more notes than it I have done all evening, even though I am in the

:05:44. > :05:47.Haydn mass and the foray Requiem. For me, Haydn is keeping focus all

:05:48. > :05:52.the way through. I think when he wrote it, people will would stand

:05:53. > :05:57.out in the choir and Sydney solos, so at the choir it wouldn't have

:05:58. > :06:07.feel strange, but I feel silly just singing, our amen and then sitting

:06:08. > :06:12.down again. You have to really truly mean it and have the integrity. The

:06:13. > :06:16.thing is not to switch off, and areas that lovely thing of the

:06:17. > :06:20.synchronised stand, when the forum is, although we can hardly see each

:06:21. > :06:25.other across the front of the stage. You are the daddy, we are all

:06:26. > :06:35.waiting for you. I didn't realise that! So when you see me flex, it is

:06:36. > :06:39.time. I have one eye on you! Kenya remember when you first came across

:06:40. > :06:41.the Requiem? Yes, I first sang it with my mum's local choir when I was

:06:42. > :07:13.about 17, then I sang the pages then I sang the Pie Jesu, and it is

:07:14. > :07:19.the most beautiful piece, I love hearing you sing the liberal me. It

:07:20. > :07:26.is something to be on that particular stage, and once you hear

:07:27. > :07:28.the base that starts the movement, it sends a thrill down the body, and

:07:29. > :07:47.I'm ready to go when I hear that. For me, that sound in the last

:07:48. > :07:51.movement, I rather hope when I finally make my final journey that

:07:52. > :07:58.that is what I wake up to. All of the angels will be singing!

:07:59. > :08:04.Lucy Crowe and Roderick Williams there. It is on with the concert,

:08:05. > :08:11.and music by Gabriel Faure, three pieces from him culminating in the

:08:12. > :08:16.Requiem, but first, in 1887, Britain was celebrating Queen Victoria's

:08:17. > :08:19.Golden Jubilee, the Eiffel Tower was being built, ML Berliner patent in

:08:20. > :08:27.the gramophone, all of Europe was in love with machines and more than 80.

:08:28. > :08:30.So what does Faure do? He writes a renaissance inspired dance. It is

:08:31. > :08:46.lyrical, reflective and beautiful. It was exactly 100 years ago that

:08:47. > :09:08.this piece was famously used by the ballet Rhoose.

:09:09. > :15:23.The Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment, conducted by Stephen

:15:24. > :15:35.Cleobury, Faure's Pavane. Faure described the piece as "elegant but

:15:36. > :15:40.not otherwise important". Faure wrote our next piece for a

:15:41. > :15:44.competition when he was a 20-year-old student at the Ecole

:15:45. > :15:50.Niedermeyer in Paris. This was the school of church music he had been

:15:51. > :15:57.attended since he was nine. His Cantique de Jean Racine won first

:15:58. > :16:01.prize. Tonight, we hear John Rutter's arrangement featuring the

:16:02. > :16:10.King's College choir and the strings of The Orchestra of the Age of the

:16:11. > :16:13.Enlightenment. The Cantique de Jean Racine, performed by The Orchestra

:16:14. > :16:14.of the Age of the Enlightenment and the Choir of King's College,

:16:15. > :21:29.Cambridge. Gabriel Faure's Cantique de Jean

:21:30. > :21:40.Racine, performed at the Proms by the The Orchestra of the Age of

:21:41. > :21:48.Enlightenment, conducted by Stephen Cleobury. That piece has only ever

:21:49. > :21:53.been heard once before at the Proms, that was in 2007 when it was

:21:54. > :21:58.performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

:21:59. > :22:09.So to close tonight, it is time for Faure's Requiem, this piece was

:22:10. > :22:18.first heard at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris in 1988 where

:22:19. > :22:24.Faure served as organist. He kept tinkering with the piece and 12

:22:25. > :22:28.years later, an expanded orchestral version was premiered. It was an

:22:29. > :22:34.immediate smash hit and a few months later Faure wrote to a friend, "My

:22:35. > :22:45.Requiem's being played in Brussels and at the Paris Conservatoire!"

:22:46. > :22:48.What do you make of it, Oz Clarke? The excitement of getting something

:22:49. > :22:53.from the 19th Century like this was so excited and along came this, we

:22:54. > :22:58.expected something massive and exotic and lush. It is exotic, but

:22:59. > :23:03.it is exotic in a spare kind of way. We expected a Requiem to be a

:23:04. > :23:06.blood-and-thunder kind of God, demanding retribution and vengeance

:23:07. > :23:10.and we got this gentle, soft, reassuring kind of God saying,

:23:11. > :23:17."Paradise is for you. Come gently towards it. I will look after you,

:23:18. > :23:25.you can bring your friends later." I think it was the Pie Jesu I got. I

:23:26. > :23:31.wonder whether it was just a bit too much for me as a 12-year-old.

:23:32. > :23:36.Interesting, you think of the other kind of big hit Requiems - we are

:23:37. > :23:45.having them at the Proms later this season. Mozart's Requiem. A lot of

:23:46. > :23:52.fire and Brimstone. This is sacred music as a balm for the soul. This

:23:53. > :24:03.is an interesting piece. Whether you do or do not believe, it invites you

:24:04. > :24:12.into a world of humanity. Pie Jesu is so moving. You do feel the light

:24:13. > :24:18.fading, the last flicker of the Flame dying and you are left in this

:24:19. > :24:22.silence which the spirit fills the silence and it enriches you like

:24:23. > :24:26.grief needs to be enriched and this kind of music gives a positive side

:24:27. > :24:36.to grief which lets you carry on with your life. Thank you very much.

:24:37. > :24:44.APPLAUSE Coming on stage now, it's the

:24:45. > :24:48.baritone, Roderick Williams, joined by conductor, Stephen Cleobury, the

:24:49. > :58:15.music is by Gabriel Faure. His Requiem.

:58:16. > :58:39.Faure said of that piece, "My Requiem is dominated by a very human

:58:40. > :58:44.feeling of faith in eternal rest." Baritone Roderick Williams shaking

:58:45. > :58:53.the hand of tonight's conductor, Stephen Cleobury. Applause for our

:58:54. > :58:58.soloist from King's College Choir in that beautiful Pie Jesu, that is

:58:59. > :59:02.Thomas Hopkins in his final year as a chorister, and the members of The

:59:03. > :59:08.Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment getting to their feet,

:59:09. > :59:14.too, applause for the organist, Richard Gowers. Beautiful matching

:59:15. > :59:23.there of the choir, soloist and the members of the orchestra.

:59:24. > :59:31.This band celebrating its 30th year, and it plays the music of this

:59:32. > :59:35.period, Mozart, we further back than that, all with the same clarity,

:59:36. > :59:40.beauty and attention to detail. This choir is a world beater, as Oz

:59:41. > :59:44.Clarke was saying before, it doesn't matter how many people pass through

:59:45. > :59:49.the doors of King's College Cambridge, there is a consistency of

:59:50. > :59:53.style and beauty to what they are doing.

:59:54. > :00:02.CHEERING And quite rightly, a beautiful smile

:00:03. > :00:06.there on the face of Thomas Hopkins, who did himself and the choir so

:00:07. > :00:27.proud tonight, he sang beautifully. Also such exquisite playing by

:00:28. > :00:30.Matthew Truscott, leader of the Orchestra of the Age of

:00:31. > :00:36.Enlightenment, a player of such restraint and taste, and really

:00:37. > :00:37.exquisite lyricism, but it never becomes sentimental and mawkish in

:00:38. > :00:55.that music, just perfect. And I think all the more poignant,

:00:56. > :00:58.really, to hear that big French Requiem, the great French Requiem in

:00:59. > :01:07.the light of recent events, what has happened in Nice becomes somehow

:01:08. > :01:13.even more moving and meaningful, that music. The choir and the voices

:01:14. > :01:25.just a form of extreme togetherness. CHEERING

:01:26. > :01:35.Well, my thanks to my guest, Oz Clarke tonight. Worth saying, two

:01:36. > :01:39.more Requiems to come this season, the soprano Lucy Crowe we had

:01:40. > :01:46.earlier tonight we'll be back in Mozart's Requiem with the Budapest

:01:47. > :01:47.Festival Orchestra, and tonight's Orchestra returns with Marin Alsop

:01:48. > :02:09.at the end of the season. Tonight's baritone, Roddy Williams,

:02:10. > :02:13.it is his only Proms performance this season, but he is moonlighting

:02:14. > :02:23.with us as a presenter and will be hosting with us next Sunday on BBC

:02:24. > :02:26.Four for A Child Of Our Time. But for now, good night.