I would like to think that had Mahler been a member of the Barbican audience witnessing the supreme musicianship of the LSO under Simon Rattle, he would have been reassured that his great masterpiece had been understood.
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The string lines towards the end of the ‘Requiem aeternum’ had maximal emotional clout, articulated with a Bernstein-like fervour
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This realisation was marvellously lucid. One really could make out the complex vertical goings-on
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The opening movement’s pounding E-minor chords recall the energy of Nielsen’s ‘Espansiva’ Symphony and it was immediately clear that Rattle had the measure of the piece, played with polish and finesse.
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At the heart of the movement is the monumental solo horn part (earning principal Timothy Jones a huge ovation), complemented by Mahler's extraordinary ingenious ensemble writing for that instrument. It was simply some of the best horn playing I have ever heard live, recklessly melodic, endlessly colourful, sometimes pillow-soft.
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Rattle kept the 27-year-old firebrand composer in view and his model of Beethoven at bay – at least until the juiced-up finale, where bass recitatives set the scene as they do in the Ninth Symphony before throwing back the curtain not on an ode to joy but a witches’ rave, artificial stimulants courtesy of Berlioz.
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...if you wanted perfection you would have heard it earlier in an astoundingly played and magnificently cogent interpretation of Britten’s early Sinfonia da Requiem.
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Another new signing by the orchestra, the principal trumpeter David Elton, was outstanding in his dreamy but perilous solo in the second movement. The exhilarating climax, however, was a team effort.
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On the eve of Europe Day, with Ukrainian and Maltese violinists on the front desk (the superbly communicative Roman Simovic and Carmine Lauri), it was vital to be reminded that music-making at the highest level is truly international.
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You couldn’t want for a more convincing performance. Every department fizzed and there was palpable sense of joy in the uninhibited orchestral fireworks, perhaps after the effort to deliver the trickier Birtwistle sound world. It was clear here that Rattle knows every note of the piece inside out and also knows how to make it swing gloriously.
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Throughout, Rattle made every moment of this mesmerising work tell: his direction was absolutely authoritative and the LSO demonstrated yet again, both in individual contributions as well as in its corporate virtuosity, why it is such a force to be reckoned with.
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Rattle has the ability to draw us in to such an epic score and time seemed suspended for half an hour as Birtwistle’s imagination seeped into ours.
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