Bruckner Mass No. 3 ‘Great’: Royal Northern Sinfonia; Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia; Durham University Choral Society. Thomas Zehetmair conductor. Elizabeth Watts soprano; Hannah Hipp mezzo-soprano; Thomas Atkins tenor; Mark Stone baritone
The Big Bruckner Weekend involved not only two concerts but also the Chorus of the Royal Northern Sinfonia singing a selection of Bruckner’s motets on the Concourse at 6.40pm.
I have never been to the Glasshouse (ex-Sage) Newcastle so it was interesting to go to two concerts there. I arrived in Newcastle after a tedious journey from Sheffield of about 5 hours (including a three and a half hours’ coach journey). However,,,,the concert hall itself feels warm and resonant – certainly in the same league as the Bridgewater Hall and Symphony Hall in Birmingham. There’s lots of cafe space and great views of the Tyne and city landscapes, though it looks like a project which ran out of money – while the Hall is all there the surroundings are a set of fenced off building sites.
I’ve never heard the Bruckner Mass before live. John Suchet of Classic FM, who seem to be associated with the weekend, described it as being as great a work as Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. This is nonsense – there are various points at which Bruckner is treading water and the work is less than consistently inspired, particularly in the Gloria – but the finest bits are very fine indeed. They include the lovely Benedictus and a lot of the Credo, particularly the quite amazing and blazing ‘ Et Resurrexit’, which really IS up there with the equivalents of Beethoven and Bach.
It’s not clear whether the Mass was ever heard or performed in its church-context – ie placed at 5 different points in the service. Certainly Bruckner was commissioned “to write a new Mass for the Burgkapelle’ but as I read the documentation on it, it was only ever performed as a concert piece. Whatever the context, one does wonder what modern audiences are experiencing when they hear a ‘great composer’ Mass. The Mozart and Schubert masses are still envisageable in a liturgical context, but this one certainly isn’t. When I hear something like this, I can relate it to my faith, but I wonder what others make of it – particularly in a performance where the programme didn’t carry the words of the Latin Mass. Is there an inherent sense of drama that comes across?
The Northern Sinfonia under Thomas Zehetmair sounded impressive – able to perform the rapid string ostinatos without any smudging and they made a powerful sound at the climaxes. I thought the combined choirs sounded fabulous and they sang tightly, with no tiredness showing in what is a long work (just over an hour), with the choir on their feet nearly all the time. The soloists sounded fine but have a relatively small role to play
The Northern Sinfonia part of the choir later before the Bruckner 8 performed 3 Bruckner Motets in the lobby, including the famous Locus Iste (see photo below)
John's musical journey 