A Mass of Life review – magical and ecstatic Proms performance of Delius's magnum opus

The Guardian

3 hours ago

It is 37 years since A Mass of Life was last done at the Proms, and that 1988 outing was only the second complete Proms performance. The neglect is barely credible, and this outstanding occasion showed what audiences have been denied. If ever there was a piece ideally suited to the Royal Albert Hall it is Delius's voluptuous 1905 magnum opus, with its double chorus, vast and sensuous orchestration, and the ecstatic affirmations of its Nietzsche text. And no conductor is more ideally suited to bringing all this together than the lifelong Delius advocate Mark Elder.
Why the disregard? Partly, perhaps, the enduring boldness of Nietzsche's atheist polemic Also Sprach Zarathustra, from which the text is culled. The main reason, though, is surely that Delius's defiantly individual aesthetic – 'a little intangible sometimes but always very beautiful', as Elgar, no less, put it so well – remains a hard sell to audiences who want their music to have more obvious structure and progression.
And yet few big pieces have a more clearcut beginning, middle and end than A Mass of Life. The opening summons leaps magnificently off the page. The atmospheric stillness at the start of the second part, with its distant horn calls – played high in the Albert Hall gallery – is a magical piece of writing. And the final chorus is an emphatic summation, admirably marshalled here by Elder to avoid any hint of bombast.
Undeniably, the work has weaker moments, in which Delius's music lingers less cogently. Yet few are without interest and none lacks artistry. The influence of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, philosophically as well as musically, is there. So is the echo of Delius's exposure to African American singing in his Florida years. The orchestration is always alive with subtle changes of timbre and phrasing. All this was sensitively realised by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with Alison Teale's bass oboe providing a distinctive presence in the fine woodwind section.
Among the vocal soloists, the baritone carries most of the weight, with Roderick Williams bringing clarity and taste to his marathon task. Jennifer Davis, Claudia Huckle and David Butt Philip showed they were not there to make up the numbers. The BBC Symphony Chorus and the London Philharmonic Choir never flagged. Surtitled translations of the German text were a good idea. But it was Elder who did most to make the case for A Mass of Life so conclusively. Why not a repeat in a year or two's time?
Listen again on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 13 September.