The Bernstein Massif: MASS at the Southbank Centre
MASS
Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre
Side Stalls X18, £10
6 April 2018
Southbank page
Despite my struggles with Bernstein I’ve nursed a desire to see MASS since I first read about this 200-strong, plotted setting of the Roman mass featuring music styles from marching band to 12 tone. Satisfyingly MASS is as entertainingly bonkers as it sounds. Sure, it’s still by Bernstein, and apparently I can find things to be irritated by in pretty much any of the many, many idioms he employs here – but who’d have thought such a piece would ever come into existence, and what a wonder it is that it not only exists but is performed.
Aside from delighting in MASS’s magnificent insanity my main thought was of its kinship to Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, as absurdly American as that is absurdly British. Both are cross-community projects, both incorporate a variety of media and idioms, both explore what community is and what it is for, both base this exploration in the context of a shared religion – it’s just that one has children tapping mugs and another is massive in every possible way. And both composers, of course, seemed to learn a lot from Copland.
It was a pleasure to think of this while watching Marin Allsop from the close-up side-on view the Side Stalls allow. Marshalling an ensemble of this size and with this many different types of performance from players with different levels of training is a technical feat all on its own, and part of the work’s joy came from the sense of the work and preparation that is on show. Allsop’s encouragement and evident delight in the project, along with her technical prowess, were as entertaining as the various visuals on display. And then there’s her relationship to Bernstein, the feeling that this highly personal piece is being nurtured by someone who worked so closely with the composer.
The ensemble of performers was very impressive. Perhaps it couldn’t fail to be – if the piece is to be performed at all I expect you need a certain attitude from everyone involved to get it off the ground at all. But I was impressed throughout, by the soloists from the National Youth Orchestra and the Chineke! Junior Orchestra, by the various children’s choirs, by the impassioned Broadway performers from I assume Streetwise Opera, from the outraged singers of the Choir With No Name who emerged thrillingly (but still safely) from the audience. Leading them all was the excellent Paulo Szot as the celebrant, who, like Alsop and everyone else on stage, performed with the conviction this bizarre piece depends upon.
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