Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

ANOTHER FINE MESSE

T

he Italians call it Messa per I Defunti. The Germans Totenmesse. But the best version, by far, comes from the silver-tongued French. The Requiem form is almost as much a part of music as it is a part of life and death, and it's obvious, in a way, that someone like Berlioz might, at some point, want to get his hands dirty having a go at it. Of course, Berlioz wouldn't just write a 'Messe des Morts' - how could he? He had to write a Grande Messe des Morts.

It is hard to think what kind of mayhem the first audience for the Berlioz Requiem thought they were witness to. Time is not so much a great healer, in this case, but more of a disguiser, a 'brasher under the carpet'. As mad, bad and dangerous to hear as the Requiem is to us, now - and that's from a point of view of not just all the romantics, under our belt, so to speak, but also, the late romantics, the modernists, the avant-garde, the post-modern ironicists, the oncle-thom-cobblicists, everyone: we've heard it all before - time has misted the perception of just quite how shocking such a work might have been to the Class of 1837.

It was inspired by the deaths of French soldiers, killed in the French Algerian campaign, and Berlioz really did want to make it monumental - a huge, towering cenotaph of music in tribute to those who had lost their lives. It may have been a work that people might not have liked, but it was certainly a work which they couldn't ignore. It calls for over two hundred voices. Bearing in mind that even a standard symphony chorus - the ones you see at the back of the Albert Hall, huddled round the organ - would only normally ask for around seventy to eighty, you can get some idea of the scale of this work. Indeed, Berlioz himself favoured using around seven to eight hundred singers. Do you want to go back and re-read that line? Yes, I did say Berlioz himself favoured using around seven to eight hundred singers! The orchestra is also massively enlarged - the standard drum section, for example. You can picture in your head the person playing the timpani drums, can't you? LTsually he's got three, maybe four, drums in front of him, yes? Often there's only two, even. Well, 'the Composer in White Coats', as he was known, wrote an amazing sixteen kettledrums into his score - sixteen! There were also four separate brass bands, playing at all four corners of the concert hall.

To be fair to Berlioz, it really must have been a tremendous spectacle, and, if he wanted to have the soldiers of the Algerian campaign remembered, then he certainly achieved that not only with the scale, but also the fact, almost in spite of the towering scale, it is still regularly mounted today. He, himself, was very proud of it, too. 'If I were threatened with the destruction of all my works but one,' he once said, T would beg for mercy for the Messe des???%' A beautiful sentiment, spoilt only marginally by the fact that he also chose 'The Birdie Dance', six other records, and a cuckoo clock as his luxury item. His fellow romantic in the opposing camp, Chopin, had a different view on the Requiem, describing it as 'composition by spilling ink on a page'.

Sobering to think that 'modern music' and the shock of the new, as it were, has always been with us. It might be Birtwisde or Berio today, perhaps, but back in 1837 it was Berlioz.

Stand by your beds, now - I'm going to skip four years. But first let me briefly 'mind the gap'.