Faure Requiem BBC Proms

Wellcome tonight's Prom. We have Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate to

open, Heiden's mass in Time of War, and Gabriel Faure. And pretty much

the world's top performers with us tonight, the Orchestra of the Age of

Enlightenment and a stellar cast of soloist, plus some rather classy

company up here with me in the gods at the Royal Albert Hall, in the

shape of wine connoisseur extraordinaire Oz Clarke. A warm

welcome to the Proms. I did not know you were a singer and a performer.

When did you start singing? Long before I started on wine, I started

at the age of eight, I was a Canterbury chorister, I had a choral

scholarship at Kings, went to Oxford and sang there, and then I went off

and did the Academy of sent martins, I used to sing with the Monteverde

choir, I sang West End shows like Sweeney Todd, and then I sort of

stopped. And that is a long, long time ago, it is about time I got

going again. We have some fantastic choral music for you tonight. We

have this wonderful Mozart, Exsultate, Jubilate, the Heiden

mass, the requiem. I am looking forward to the Exsultate, Jubilate,

I don't know how he gets so much into 40 minutes. As a choir boy, I

always wanted to sing PA Jesu. I wanted to sing like Maria Callas. I

kept thinking that I wanted to do it, we never did 19th-century stuff

at Canterbury, we had a long period of tight cathedral music, Gibbons

and Thalys and all those people. The idea of doing the requiem was almost

too thrilling to believe, and when you heard the Pie Jesu, I wanted

that. We might even have had a horn doing it. And we have a woman doing

the Exsultate, Jubilate, the fabulous soloist, Lucy Crowe, who

told me she is quite nervous. It is a full on police. I remember Kiri Te

Kanawa are doing it a long time ago, and it is relentless,

individualistic, the Sting with challenging bit, but great tunes. Oz

, we will catch up later. Let's start with Mozart's Exsultate,

Jubilate, he wrote it just before his 17th birthday. It was written

for the Italian castrato Venanzio Rauzzini.

APPLAUSE So,

APPLAUSE For Stephen Kelly Bree joining the

Orchestra of the age of Enlightenment, and Lucy Crowe, a

fabulous voice. -- Stephen Cleobury. MUSIC: Exsultate,

Jubilate by WA Mozart Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate,

opening tonight's Prom here at the Royal Albert Hall. The beautiful

bell-like clarity of Lucy Crowe's voice. She is such a captivating

performer. Stephen Cleobury with her. Along with The Orchestra of the

Age of the Enlightenment. Lucy Crowe, who cites two big female

stars as her inspiration - Maria Callas and Madonna. She says she's

an independent, strong, powerful woman.

I loved that. Your reaction, Oz? Thrilling. 17 when he wrote that?

16, not even 17. Isn't it hateful? What I loved about Lucy's

performance, it was so fresh. There was a fantastic youthful, confident

vivacity about it. That is also to do with this orchestra, the OAE.

They want to try and play it in the style of the composers of that time.

I think that freshness comes across? Yeah, Mozart would have been

delighted. Stephen Cleobury is a man... Did you work with him in

Oxford? No, it was his brother, who is a great friend of mine. I have

been working with him forever. I still do Lord's Taverners things

with him around Christmas time. You have had a 30-year break from

singing and you are back doing what singing and drinking, you are doing

live gigs? Yes, we are doing wine and music. We do these concerts. We

have come back from Cheltenham. We had a fantastic success there. We

have come back from a standing ovation at Harrogate yesterday. And

we do wine drinking and beautiful Baroque music. It is everything you

love. Everything I love. And I get to stand on the stage and people

listen to me and they laugh at my jokes! Not tonight! I will talk to

you in a minute. Next, we have Haydn's Mass in Time of War. This is

written against a background of violence sweeping across Europe.

It's known as the Paukenmesse, or Timpani Mass. The drums give it a

military flavour and the whole tone of the piece is a protest against

war and bloodshed. It ends with a chorus Donna Nobis Pacem - Grant Us

Peace. An impressive line-up of soloists. Lucy Crowe is back with

the mezzo-soprano, Paula Murrihy, the tenor, Robin Tritschler, and the

baritone, Roderick Williams. Conducting them all Stephen

Cleobury, with The Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment already on

stage. The choir of King's College Cambridge here, too.

Haydn's Mass in Time of War, performed here at the 2016 BBC Proms

by the soprano Lucy Crowe, the mezzo, Paula Murrihy, the tenor was

Robin Tritschler, the baritone was Roderick Williams, and the choir of

King's College Cambridge, conducted by their Music Director, Stephen

Cleobury. Worth saying, Oz, timpanist did a

fantastic job. From the first beat, Stephen Cleobury put his hands up

and bang in came the timpany. I thought it was going to be a fest,

and it was not. It was beautifully done altogether.

Well, Hayden himself was a chorister at Saint Stephens in Vienna, and the

choirmaster had him all lined up for the operation that he could become a

castrato, but fortunately for all of us, he became a fine composer

instead. This choir has such a global

reputation for just the most beautiful sound. You have boy

choristers aged between nine and 13, then the choral scholars. I know

when you were singing at Canterbury, there was the traditional rivalry,

Kings, Cambridge and Canterbury. Who is better? Canterbury, quite

clearly! Some years, we had such a thrilling choir, we could have

beaten anyone in the world, and it is competitive, but year by year, I

watch and listen to these guys every year, and I think Stephen Cleobury

has done such a good job of keeping a smoothness of interpretation and

impression with completely different personnel every year. That is

difficult to handle, to have a bespoke sound for your choir that is

recognisably yours, with a changeover of personnel all the

time. Certainly in the undergraduates, there are some

thrilling singers coming through, you meet them later as soloists,

with enormous amount of personality in their voices, but when they are

at King's, it gets subsumed into that style. How would you define as

somebody who has been at the centre of it, the English choral sound.

What is it? For me, it is something to do with the way that the sound

rises and fills through great transepts and knaves and choirs in

the cathedrals and churches in this country. It is something we are very

lucky to have such a strong tradition with. It is one of those

sounds that cuts across race, age, class. It is something which if you

just open your heart and mind, it is a thrilling chance to explore more

of yourself, and find a spirituality which even the most cynical person

has inside them. Speaking of finding that moment in yourself, Stephen

Cleobury has a boy soprano solo coming up later, he has several

people lined up men he will choose who he wants. Did you ever get that

solo moment in the spotlight, and what is it like I was like the

pressure must be enormous. I don't think he tells them before they

start, he has several lined up and he suddenly says, you! Did you have

the call? Yes, once at Canterbury, one of us was going to sing Once In

Royal David City, and he suddenly said, Clark, it is you. And off I

went, and I gave a rather bravura performance. But you don't get to

fret for too long. Speaking of star solos, we have already heard the

wonderful voice of Lucy Crowe, one of this country's brightest singing

stars. She got her first break into the world of opera back in 2007 when

she stood in at the last minute at the English National Opera. She had

only recently left music college, but she stole the show. The

baritone, Roderick Williams, was of course, Oxford, who trained as a

teacher and in his late 20s embarked on a career as a singer. Today he is

an international star. He is now backstage preparing for his part in

the Faure Requiem. We caught up with them after rehearsals. We were

talking earlier about how we approach sacred music, and we are

not particularly religious, but you don't have to be able to project and

perform the music to your best ability and the way it needs to be.

I think the music does speak for itself, particularly this

understated style that Faure has, the heightened jubilate Shin, the

exuberance of the Mozart, as well. You don't feel you have to put too

much else into it to try to communicate it in some special way.

You have quite a lot to sing, how do you find it? It might feel like a

lot in one sense, but when you have finished that Mozart, you have some

more notes than it I have done all evening, even though I am in the

Haydn mass and the foray Requiem. For me, Haydn is keeping focus all

the way through. I think when he wrote it, people will would stand

out in the choir and Sydney solos, so at the choir it wouldn't have

feel strange, but I feel silly just singing, our amen and then sitting

down again. You have to really truly mean it and have the integrity. The

thing is not to switch off, and areas that lovely thing of the

synchronised stand, when the forum is, although we can hardly see each

other across the front of the stage. You are the daddy, we are all

waiting for you. I didn't realise that! So when you see me flex, it is

time. I have one eye on you! Kenya remember when you first came across

the Requiem? Yes, I first sang it with my mum's local choir when I was

about 17, then I sang the pages then I sang the Pie Jesu, and it is

the most beautiful piece, I love hearing you sing the liberal me. It

is something to be on that particular stage, and once you hear

the base that starts the movement, it sends a thrill down the body, and

I'm ready to go when I hear that. For me, that sound in the last

movement, I rather hope when I finally make my final journey that

that is what I wake up to. All of the angels will be singing!

Lucy Crowe and Roderick Williams there. It is on with the concert,

and music by Gabriel Faure, three pieces from him culminating in the

Requiem, but first, in 1887, Britain was celebrating Queen Victoria's

Golden Jubilee, the Eiffel Tower was being built, ML Berliner patent in

the gramophone, all of Europe was in love with machines and more than 80.

So what does Faure do? He writes a renaissance inspired dance. It is

lyrical, reflective and beautiful. It was exactly 100 years ago that

this piece was famously used by the ballet Rhoose.

The Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment, conducted by Stephen

Cleobury, Faure's Pavane. Faure described the piece as "elegant but

not otherwise important". Faure wrote our next piece for a

competition when he was a 20-year-old student at the Ecole

Niedermeyer in Paris. This was the school of church music he had been

attended since he was nine. His Cantique de Jean Racine won first

prize. Tonight, we hear John Rutter's arrangement featuring the

King's College choir and the strings of The Orchestra of the Age of the

Enlightenment. The Cantique de Jean Racine, performed by The Orchestra

of the Age of the Enlightenment and the Choir of King's College,

Cambridge. Gabriel Faure's Cantique de Jean

Racine, performed at the Proms by the The Orchestra of the Age of

Enlightenment, conducted by Stephen Cleobury. That piece has only ever

been heard once before at the Proms, that was in 2007 when it was

performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

So to close tonight, it is time for Faure's Requiem, this piece was

first heard at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris in 1988 where

Faure served as organist. He kept tinkering with the piece and 12

years later, an expanded orchestral version was premiered. It was an

immediate smash hit and a few months later Faure wrote to a friend, "My

Requiem's being played in Brussels and at the Paris Conservatoire!"

What do you make of it, Oz Clarke? The excitement of getting something

from the 19th Century like this was so excited and along came this, we

expected something massive and exotic and lush. It is exotic, but

it is exotic in a spare kind of way. We expected a Requiem to be a

blood-and-thunder kind of God, demanding retribution and vengeance

and we got this gentle, soft, reassuring kind of God saying,

"Paradise is for you. Come gently towards it. I will look after you,

you can bring your friends later." I think it was the Pie Jesu I got. I

wonder whether it was just a bit too much for me as a 12-year-old.

Interesting, you think of the other kind of big hit Requiems - we are

having them at the Proms later this season. Mozart's Requiem. A lot of

fire and Brimstone. This is sacred music as a balm for the soul. This

is an interesting piece. Whether you do or do not believe, it invites you

into a world of humanity. Pie Jesu is so moving. You do feel the light

fading, the last flicker of the Flame dying and you are left in this

silence which the spirit fills the silence and it enriches you like

grief needs to be enriched and this kind of music gives a positive side

to grief which lets you carry on with your life. Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE Coming on stage now, it's the

baritone, Roderick Williams, joined by conductor, Stephen Cleobury, the

music is by Gabriel Faure. His Requiem.

Faure said of that piece, "My Requiem is dominated by a very human

feeling of faith in eternal rest." Baritone Roderick Williams shaking

the hand of tonight's conductor, Stephen Cleobury. Applause for our

soloist from King's College Choir in that beautiful Pie Jesu, that is

Thomas Hopkins in his final year as a chorister, and the members of The

Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment getting to their feet,

too, applause for the organist, Richard Gowers. Beautiful matching

there of the choir, soloist and the members of the orchestra.

This band celebrating its 30th year, and it plays the music of this

period, Mozart, we further back than that, all with the same clarity,

beauty and attention to detail. This choir is a world beater, as Oz

Clarke was saying before, it doesn't matter how many people pass through

the doors of King's College Cambridge, there is a consistency of

style and beauty to what they are doing.

CHEERING And quite rightly, a beautiful smile

there on the face of Thomas Hopkins, who did himself and the choir so

proud tonight, he sang beautifully. Also such exquisite playing by

Matthew Truscott, leader of the Orchestra of the Age of

Enlightenment, a player of such restraint and taste, and really

exquisite lyricism, but it never becomes sentimental and mawkish in

that music, just perfect. And I think all the more poignant,

really, to hear that big French Requiem, the great French Requiem in

the light of recent events, what has happened in Nice becomes somehow

even more moving and meaningful, that music. The choir and the voices

just a form of extreme togetherness. CHEERING

Well, my thanks to my guest, Oz Clarke tonight. Worth saying, two

more Requiems to come this season, the soprano Lucy Crowe we had

earlier tonight we'll be back in Mozart's Requiem with the Budapest

Festival Orchestra, and tonight's Orchestra returns with Marin Alsop

at the end of the season. Tonight's baritone, Roddy Williams,

it is his only Proms performance this season, but he is moonlighting

with us as a presenter and will be hosting with us next Sunday on BBC

Four for A Child Of Our Time. But for now, good night.