Cards on the table, first off: I admit that I struggle with
Delius’ Mass of Life. It has many distinguished
advocates, all of whom I respect deeply, who argue that it is
one of the great choral works of the 20th Century,
but I just don’t hear it. It has wonderful moments, for
sure - more of which below - but it also has some wearying longueurs
where I wish the music would just hurry up and get on with something
… anything! I’m not talking about the moments of
intentional stillness, such as the beginning of Part Two: those
are wonderful! It’s just that there are times, particularly
in the second part, where I can’t help but think that
Delius gets caught up in his own philosophical navel-gazing,
too overawed by Nietzsche’s ideas to assess them critically
or to respond to them with sufficient musical skill.
All that said, this performance has done more than any other
I’ve heard to win me over ... somewhat. David Hill brings
the score to life in a way that you seldom hear and his performers
are fully paid up for the project so that they sing and play
with full commitment. The only other readily available recording
is by Richard Hickox on Chandos, and it also uses the Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra, so there are ripe grounds for comparison,
though I should say from the off that I think Hill’s is
now the better buy.
There are technical reasons for this, most notably the recorded
sound which is superb. The Naxos engineers have done a great
job of capturing the acoustic of the Lighthouse, picking out
each line with more precision than did Chandos, whose wall-of-sound
is effective but has a propensity to overwhelm in places. Each
line is clearly audible, even the instrumental lines, such as
the harps, which could get lost in other contexts, including
a live performance. Hill is also blessed with excellent soloists.
Alan Opie as Zarathustra is excellent, more declamatory and
more arresting than Peter Coleman-Wright, who can sound gravelly
on the Chandos recording. Janice Watson and Catherine Wyn-Rogers
are also very good, but the one who really comes as balm to
the ears is Andrew Kennedy. His gorgeous, honey-sweet tenor
is a delight to listen to, leavening the texture every time
he appears and quickening the ear whenever he turns up in the
big ensembles.
However, the thing that really sets this performance apart is
Hill’s conducting. He gets inside the mood of each movement
in a way I found even more convincing than Hickox. It’s
a commonplace that the opening chorus of each part is full of
energy, but Hill elevates that dynamism to a new level. The
opening chord of Part One is like the crack of a starting pistol
and the whole of that first movement proceeds with such exuberance
as to be uplifting and exhilarating, perhaps the place in the
work where text and music fit each other most successfully.
He captures this effervescent life force beautifully, and he
does so even more successfully in the two great dance-songs,
which carried me along much more convincingly than did Hickox.
The first one is a triumph: it is shaped organically so that
it grows naturally out of the opening recitatives and when the
fugue arrives on Das ist ein Tanz the whirl of the dance
is almost bewildering. This exhilarating sweep carries on into
the evening scene of the second part where Zarathustra comes
upon the dancing maidens. Here the music carries on its exhilarating
sweep, if anything even more so than in the first movement,
and Hill builds the multifaceted edifice in a way that even
won over a cynic like me.
It is to his credit that he is every bit as successful with
the quieter moments. The famous introduction to Part Two, On
the Mountains, is spellbindingly played (and recorded),
Hill making a virtue out of stillness as the horns call gently
to one another, and he is just as fine when capturing the nocturnal
mood of the evening scenes. Here the playing of the orchestra
comes into its own too, with rich, swelling lower winds and
glowing brass underpinned by a swelling bed of support from
the strings. It encapsulates very well the mood of longing so
intrinsic to Delius at his best and Hill controls it so that
it doesn’t sound sentimental but alive. I can’t
say the same about all of Part Two - parts of the fourth and
fifth movements I find unbearably tedious - but if you want
to explore the Mass of Life then this is now the best
place to start. It’s better recorded and, on balance,
better performed than Hickox’s version for Chandos and
it’s also a lot cheaper at Naxos bargain price.
The Prelude and Idyll makes an unusual but effective
filler, less substantial than the Requiem which Hickox
has for his coupling but satisfying in a different way. The
music began life in the opera Margot la Rouge, unperformed
in the composer’s lifetime, and towards the end of life,
with the help of Eric Fenby, Delius returned to it and extracted
this music to create a wholly new work for the concert hall.
The prelude has a gently pastoral air to it, while the Idyll
is a gently reflective dialogue where two lovers remember their
encounter and recall it in idealised language with passionate
music to match. It’s sung very well by Opie and Watson,
though she is prone to a little shrillness at times.
Simon Thompson
see also review by Rob
Barnett
Janice Watson (soprano); Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mezzo)*; Andrew Kennedy
(tenor)*; Alan Opie (baritone) 