The Bernstein Project - Mass, Royal Festival Hall | reviews, news & interviews
The Bernstein Project - Mass, Royal Festival Hall
The Bernstein Project - Mass, Royal Festival Hall
Total artwork, nine months in the making: 500 mostly amateurs rock Lenny's masterpiece
Monday, 12 July 2010
Marin Alsop and the electric guitars, tip of the 500-strong iceberg in Bernstein's 'Mass'Sam Peach
It's been quite a week for youth and the vernacular in the world of so-called “classical” music. Multiply by four the seven fledgling stage animals currently firing up John Adams’s “earthquake-romance” in London's East End, add an orchestra of 13-to-24-year-olds from four continents, student dancers, amateur choirs young and old and just a handful of professionals, and that's only the starting-point for this hair-raising, goosebump-inducing, 500-strong performance of what many of us believe to be Bernstein's most cohesive masterpiece.
It's been quite a week for youth and the vernacular in the world of so-called “classical” music. Multiply by four the seven fledgling stage animals currently firing up John Adams’s “earthquake-romance” in London's East End, add an orchestra of 13-to-24-year-olds from four continents, student dancers, amateur choirs young and old and just a handful of professionals, and that's only the starting-point for this hair-raising, goosebump-inducing, 500-strong performance of what many of us believe to be Bernstein's most cohesive masterpiece.
Share this article
Add comment
The future of Arts Journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more Classical music
Messiah, Wild Arts, Chichester Cathedral review - a dynamic battle between revelatory light and Stygian gloom
This supple inventive interpretation of the 'Messiah' thrillingly delivers the story
Messiah, Academy of Ancient Music, Cummings, Barbican review - once more, with real feeling
The seasonal standby returns with heart, zest and grace
Christmas with Connaught Brass, Milton Court review - delightful seasonal fare from Bach to Boulanger
Young quintet dazzle with their technical accomplishment and easy charm
Classical CDs: Christmas 2024
The year's best seasonal releases
Giltburg, Bournemouth SO, Wigglesworth, Portsmouth Guildhall review - seemingly effortless élan
New chief conductor turns Tchaikovsky waltz king, and a Rachmaninov partnership flows
Bach Mendelssohn Festival, Part I, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra review - the flame that never died
Top-flight performers show how a musical legacy endured
Currie, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sparkle and intrigue
Energy and excitement in MacMillan… and then a surprise
Rajakesar, Selaocoe, The Hermes Experiment, Wigmore Hall review - a joyful, fascinating laboratory of noise
Celebrating the avant-garde through different cultures
Classical CDs: Vitamins, kings and magic spells
A neglected ballet score, romantic piano concertos and contemporary British music
Kavakos, Philharmonia, Blomstedt, RFH review - a supreme valediction forbidding mourning
Nonagenarian conductor provides the flow, his players the passion, in Mahler's Ninth
Perianes, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Payare, Barbican review - elegance and drama but not enough bite
Often dynamic Venezuelan conductor misses the darkness of the 'Symphonie fantastique'
La Serenissima, Wigmore Hall review - an Italian menu to savour
Tasty Baroque discoveries, tastefully delivered
Comments
...
...