Fruehbeck leads a masterful Requiem
The Boston Symphony Orchestra didn't get around to performing the Berlioz Requiem until 1951, but since then it has become a signature piece.
Until last night, when it was led, triumphantly, by Rafael Fruehbeck de Burgos, the Requiem has been the exclusive property of two BSO music directors. Charles Munch led that first performance and repeated the work in three later seasons, recording it in 1959, a version that remains a point of reference to this day. Seiji Ozawa was fond of it too, leading it in eight different seasons, and recording it in 1993.
So it was significant that last night at the end, the orchestra and chorus joined the audience in applauding Fruehbeck, whose handling of the work was in every respect masterly.
The three big, flamboyant sections that conductors and audiences love were spectacular. The Tanglewood Festival chorus raised the rafters and the four brass choirs left the ears ringing. The brasses were not disposed at the points of the compass, as Berlioz requested, but Fruehbeck's arrangement -- one group at each side of the stage, the other two opposite each other in the front of the first balcony -- created the surround-sound effect the composer was after. The ''Lachrymosa," with its accompaniment stabbing the melody, was particularly exciting.
But most of this Requiem, famous for its largeness and loudness, is actually quiet and subtle, and in these aspects Fruehbeck's achievement was unique. One never hears the choral part sung with such attention to nuance and over such a wide dynamic range. It helped that the chorus sang from memory, as usual; this brings a whole new dimension of immediacy to the work. And this time some of the balances and details that chorusmaster John Oliver likes to develop in rehearsal survived into the actual performance conducted by someone else.
Fruehbeck called for haunting decrescendos as often as asking everyone for more and still more; he made us hear in the falling musical phrases of the opening the sound of dropping tears. Even when the chorus is restricted to two adjacent notes, as Berlioz does throughout the ''Offertorium," the effect was of intense, varied pleading.
Metropolitan Opera tenor Matthew Polenzani had the work's only solo moment, in the ''Sanctus." His voice is vibrant and very present, and the exposed high notes peal forth with intense concentration, like a ray of sun focused through a magnifying glass. He didn't make the traditional distant, angelic effect; instead he offered something human and compelling.
The orchestra played securely across a full range of colors and dynamics; detail never interrupted momentum. Fruehbeck led with experience, sensibility, and passion; even in the most extroverted moments of this great performance, he offered the Requiem as a series of meditations, praises, and prayers.
