Lsolso Chorusbbc Symphony Chorushenricpappano Review Grand Forces Capture The Viscerality And Desperation Of Berliozs Requiem

LSO/LSO Chorus/BBC Symphony Chorus/Henric/Pappano review – grand forces capture the viscerality and desperation of Berlioz’s Requiem

A huge choir, an expanded orchestra, four brass bands and a warehouse-full of percussion achieved surround-sound magnificence

✍ Erica Jeal

🕒 16 Aug 2026 19:27

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When Berlioz titled his Requiem Grande Messe des Morts he wasn’t overselling it. It requires grand forces indeed: a huge choir, an expanded orchestra, four brass bands and a warehouse-full of percussion, including enough timpani to occupy 10 players simultaneously. It’s not a deep personal expression of devotion – the composer had lost his faith by the time he wrote it – so much as a painting of the Requiem’s text in all its viscerality and desperation. It’s a Proms piece if ever there was one, and this performance, with Antonio Pappano sweeping the massed forces of the LSO, the LSO Chorus and BBC Symphony Chorus through the work’s 80-minute span, rose to the occasion.

Berlioz’s special effects didn’t disappoint. In the Tuba Mirum, thrilling brass yielded to a blur of drumsticks as the timpani and the four tam-tams took over, creating an enveloping low-frequency swell that we could feel through our feet: the earth really could have been splitting, graves emptying. Pappano might have seemed to be missing a trick by placing all four brass bands at the focal end of the hall – two directly behind the orchestra, two up high either side of the choir – rather than all around the gallery. But this was probably wise for coordination, and the loudest moments from the high-up players ricocheted off the opposite walls, so a kind of surround-sound effect was achieved regardless. In the Sanctus the sight of seven pairs of cymbals being picked up was the stuff to trigger a fight-or-flight response; but the sound that ensued, framing Julien Henric’s valiantly poised tenor solo, was almost comically gentle, a shimmery swish that might almost have been the beat of angelic wings.

Indeed, much of the work is surprisingly thinly scored. Long passages find the choir accompanied only by a handful of instruments, or even, in the Quaerens Me, a cappella. Much of the choral writing is mercilessly exposed, difficult to tune and, for the tenors in particular, very high. Whether singing with chant-like innocence or with fierce desperation, these two amateur choruses, around 250 strong, combined to do a magnificent job.

• Available on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 12 September.