Big IS Beautiful

BBC Symphony Orchestra sub-principal viola Phil Hall says, if you’ve never heard the Gurrelieder, a treat awaits you on the iPlayer …

If there is one piece of music to rival the huge scale of the Olympic Closing Ceremony, then it has to be Schoenberg’s epic cantata on Danish legends, Gurreleider.

I have loved this extraordinary piece since student days when people who had seen a rare performance of it would talk about it with awe and wonder, as if they had seen Bigfoot or the giant Bamyan Buddhas.

Fortunately in the last 20 years the BBC Symphony Orchestra has had the rare pleasure of performing it three times, twice at the Proms, and last Sunday night was the fourth. The reason it is seldom done is the expense - the orchestra is larger than that required for Mahler 8 and there are almost as many singers.

But what I love most is the sheer beauty of the music; magical intimate moments sit alongside barnstorming battles with a sunrise ending that turns my legs to jelly. Late Schoenberg can be box-office poison but this work is early, deeply Romantic; think Wagner orchestrated by Mahler and you are close to his amazing sound world. Actually Schoenberg took so long to orchestrate the piece (10 years) that his style had changed to dodecaphonic (twelve-tone, or tone-row) by the time of the premiere in Vienna in 1911. In fact he famously sat through it scowling and refused to bow to the audience despite a rave reception!

But if you haven’t heard this beautiful behemoth I would strongly urge you to catch it on the iPlayer just in case your legs go to jelly at the end as well …

• Listen to Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder
• Read the programme notes for the performance
• Visit the Proms website