Das Paradies und die Peri / London Symphony Orchestra / Simon Rattle, Barbican Hall - music review

Simon Rattle last conducted an unforgettable performance of Das Paradies und die Peri in 2007 with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. This offering with the LSO, exquisitely phrased and eliciting its rapt numinous quality, was hardly less poignant
Exquisite: Sir Simon Rattle conducts the LSO / Picture: Chris Christodoulou
Barry Millington16 January 2015

Despite the fertility of its invention, Schumann’s “secular oratorio” Das Paradies und die Peri (Paradise and the Peri) has never quite caught on, at least in the modern age, as one of his great masterpieces. Happily, for those of us who adore the work, one of its most fervent advocates is Simon Rattle, who last conducted it in London with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in 2007. Last night he brought it again, this time with the LSO but largely the same vocal line-up.

The text, taken from the verse epic Lalla Rookh by the Irish poet Thomas Moore, tells how the Peri, an angelic spirit expelled from paradise for some unspecified misdemeanour, gains entry at the Eternal Gate, at the third attempt, by collecting the tear of a repentant sinner. (The last drop of blood from a hero killed in battle and the final sigh of a maiden who sacrificed her life for love fail to cut the mustard.) While Moore’s tale smacks, it has to be admitted, of 19th-century bourgeois morality, it was perfectly attuned to the Biedermeier sensibility of Schumann’s time. Further, there’s not a trace of sentimentality (to my ears) in Schumann’s setting, which relishes the text’s Middle Eastern exoticism, furnishing it with an abundance of lyrical material — some of the best the composer ever produced.

Rattle’s unforgettable performance with the period instruments of the OAE brought out the score’s freshness and ravishing sonorities. This, with the LSO, exquisitely phrased and eliciting its rapt numinous quality, was hardly less poignant.

Sally Matthews as the Peri fully engaged our sympathies for the resourceful spirit, capturing alike her plaintive entreaties and her vibrant exultation at the prospect of redemption.

Mark Padmore was an equally ardent Narrator and Bernarda Fink an exemplary Angel. Florian Boesch contributed a stylishly nuanced bass solo; Kate Royal and Andrew Staples completed the roster. Simon Halsey’s London Symphony Chorus distinguished itself.

Fortunately we don’t have to wait another eight years to hear the work again: BBC Radio 3 recorded it live and it should be available on iPlayer by the time you read this.

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