"Human Requiem", 2 March 2016, Loke Yew Hall, The University of Hong Kong
A German Requiem (Johannes Brahms), version for soloists, choir and piano four-hands
arranged by Phillip Moll from the original transcription
Berlin Radio Choir
Soprano soloist - Sylvia Schwartz
Baritone soloist - Konrad Jarnot
Pianists - Angela Gassenhuber, Philip Mayers
Directors - Ilka Seifert, Sasha Waltz
Conductors - Nicolas Fink, Andreas Felber
"Lover", 5 March 2016, Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre
Lover (Christian Jost), music-dance-theatre for choir and percussions
U-Theatre (Taiwan) and Berlin Radio Choir
Director - Liu Ruo-yu
Drumming Choreography - Huang Chih-chun
Conductor - Nicolas Fink
I never been a great fan of Brahms except his chamber works. His symphonic and choral works made an impression that being restrain on expressing his inner emotions and creative ideas. Nevertheless, I found this superlative performance of Brahms's Requiem by the Berlin Radio Choir, in a conceptual production of Sasha Waltz & Guests, a powerful and moving experience.
The stage choreography and light effects set up a visual interpretation of life and death in regard to the emotions and abstract visions of the religious sung text. Audience were encouraged to participate and involve while surrounded by musicians on the ground floor. Though I had taken the option to watch the performance from the balcony for acoustic balance and visual impression how it all came together. The first movement 'Selig sind, die da Leid tragen' began with choir members in circular flow among the standing audience. It was a mobile meditation to enact the life cycle in between sadness and happiness. The hall turned into darkness as the second movement began. A funeral procession was formed with the chorus carrying a lady in white lying on top of a pyre and pushing the piano on a mobile platform. The highly dramatic 'ritual' realised the sequence of death and gradually built up the climatic moment when receiving hope over sorrow.
The stage light then flooded on the altar where the lady in white lying in the fourth movement. The procession returned to a slower flow while the baritone narrated at the end of life souls and mind were given to the custody of god. At this point the chorus entered the stage platform at the other end of the hall. A playground with swings formed a metaphorical representation of garden Eden for eternal joy, which echoed the verses of psalm 84. Audience stood again and all looked at the representation of 'heaven'. The lady in white was resurrected and became the angelic figure telling the comfort and peace she found in the after life. The sixth movement then turned away from the journey of life, death and reborn to dwell more on the second coming of Christ. Bleak lighting was employed when the baritone sang passages of the judgement day from the first book of Corinthians from the balcony. The chilling surrounding gradually faded away when a lone stage light lit up directly at us. While the choir formed two long lines separating the audience, children processed out through a door to represent the power of creation and hopefulness. Then the hall gradually returned to darkness as the choir formed a square surrounding the audience to sing the epilogue that the faithful would receive the reward and blessing.
Towards the end, I understood more why the composer selected these biblical texts and the relation with the music. One could argue the staging was one way putting us into context but importantly it highlighted that delicate relationship between the human desires before and after death, whereas christian beliefs would provide that 'vision' whether one being religious or not. The text itself would also not make the same impact to bring out the sentimental emotions without the music and visual realisation of the concept. It was 'human' after all since we participated, and for centuries endlessly seeking after the same idealistic ritual and aftermath, thus, no surprise that I felt satisfied and fulfilled however naive the thought might be.
Musically, this chamber version offered a leaner sound texture that was refreshing for the ears and allowed the music to flow more vertically with directions. Impeccable clarity in diction and the rich body of sound produced many spellbinding moments of beautiful choral singing, particularly the sheer force of musical momentum in the second movement 'Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras', unaccompanied passage of the fifth movement 'Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit' and 'Herr, du bist wuerdig' in the sixth movement. Generally the male voice parts were better by using less vibrato and produced radiant tone colour. It took female voice parts, the sopranos especially, some time to coordinate tempos and intonation as a section. As a whole, the choir should be credited for not only acting around the hall while performing, but also sang the whole work from memory without the score. The two conductors managed to hold everything together despite the complexity of choreography, which was not easy for the sightline. They mostly kept the musical shape well enough except some chaotic moments in the fugue of second movement. Vocally the two soloists were disappointing though. Konrad Jarnot somehow lost the sense of phrasing and being unsettled with tempo in the third movement 'Herr, lehre doch mich'. I felt he improved later in the sixth movement, 'Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt', with the desired darkness in timbre and vocal volume for the authoritative opening. Sylvia Schwartz was the weakest link of the evening. Heavy vibrato in her timbre and wobble through the supposed angelic first half of the fifth movement 'Ihr habt nun Trauigkeit'. Diction was muddled as result and only her outlook redeemed the visual expectation. Polished and sensitive playing from the two pianists maintained the musical momentum throughout. They responded to the change of atmosphere by being tender or building climatic moments with flexibility.
'Lover' by Christian Jost was an attempt of intercultural art collaborations through Chinese martian arts and percussions, western choral singing, poems from ancient China and the American poet E. E. Cummings from first half of 20th century.
The evening began with a white man in blind, the protagonist, first came on stage while male dancers in black performing a ritual dance. It partially realised the scene of crying ospreys surrounding a lost man struggled to see the reality, but not so much magnifying the pain from longing a woman that far from reaching. Musically the next movement, based on Cummings' 'May I feel said he', was the most colourful of all. Drums, gongs, xylophone and guqin produced percussion effects to depict hesitations and psychological confusions when couple fell into love. The choral passage in contrast was more lyrical and tonal. Women in red dress joined in the dance but the blind man in white was sailing with long stick and holding a fish net. It was more a mind game of affections than physically passionate. The third movement, 'I like my body when it is with your body', was supposedly more body graphical vivid, though the stage choreography turned out to be a refined 'kung fu' demonstration. The white man unfolded his blind and became acrobatic in movements. Vigorous drumming was given but the lullaby like choral passage was most enigmatic. An abstract theme followed by lamenting the memories in bed at the day of doom. The singing became a form of meditation in the style of Tavener, slow, simple but surreal. Though I found the following drum solo a technical showcase rather than a devastation. Nonetheless, many would probably find it entertaining and provided some musical direction than the previous cloudy choral movement. Staging wise the last movement was most elaborate with big white plants hanging from the roof to realise the image of heaven, which the poem 'Shang Ya' specify the protagonist would merge altogether with earth. The white man wore a rich red coloured dress and finally reunited with the 'lady', but we could not be sure whether it was a human love or more.
I felt abstraction and simplicity would have worked when each domain connecting to each other rather than performing its conventional function in fullness. A storyline was not necessary but stage choreography often became a demonstration of artistic beauty than realising the abstract psychological states of the sung texts. It was also a pity to be restrained on physical contact even the imaginations were expressive on it. The underlined message, from physical desire of love and affection between man and woman magnified into the philosophical embrace of nature, was grand but randomness in context vaguely connected the poems as a whole. It was a good intercultural art experiment but lacked logical progression to make the message a powerful one.
The Berlin choir was positioned differently for the Hong Kong performance, which they sang from the orchestra pit than behind the percussion units. This might to do with the acoustic balance in the grand theatre but it left the backstage rather bare in darkness. Another problem was related to diction, which I felt the choir generally fell short from articulating both the Chinese and English sung text understandable for the ears. Despite more tonal than Philip Glass, musical textures mainly stuck with repetitive patterns and certain sound range in each movement. I hardly remembered if there were any corners with dramatic choral effects to emphasise certain words. It was no surprise that the choral singing hardly able to shape the music except every time an endless narration with many words. The impression might have been better if the sopranos would employ less vibratos, more secured intonation and younger voices to refresh the music for a clear sound structure. Christian Jost's conducting was more to keep everything together but nowhere near to that superlative Human Requiem performance three evenings ago.
