Settings of the Magnificat, the Marian hymn taken from Luke’s gospel, are a regular part of the Christian liturgy, but versions intended primarily for the concert hall are much less common. Even the most famous versions, such the two included in Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, or JS Bach’s sumptuous version, began life in church services. But Ryan Wigglesworth’s half-hour setting, first performed by the Bergen Philharmonic last year, and brought to London by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its Chorus with the composer himself conducting, is unambiguously a concert piece, calling for solo soprano, large chorus and a Mahler-sized orchestra (six horns, five percussionists, and quartets of trumpets and trombones).
The text is, says Wigglesworth, “a strange, intensely personal testimony that appears to traverse, panoramically, the entire history and future of humanity”, and his setting seems to reflect that sense of scale and scope with its climaxes of brassy, almost martial grandeur contrasting starkly with its moments of the most delicate intimacy. There are passing homages to both Monteverdi’s and Bach’s settings, as well as ritornello-like woodwind passages, though there is never any sense of the neo-baroque about either the vocal or orchestral writing. The score is dedicated to Wigglesworth’s wife, the soprano Sophie Bevan, and as at the premiere she was the soloist here, sometimes soaring serenely above the chorus, or intertwining with its female voices, before bringing this impressive piece to its quiet close over gently pulsing harp and celesta.
The second half of the concert was devoted to a rather over-driven account of Schumann’s Second Symphony, but Wigglesworth had begun with an arrangement of his own – the famous Lamento d’Arianna, all that survives of Monteverdi’s second opera, based on the story of Ariadne and Theseus and first performed in Mantua in 1608, the year after L’Orfeo. His version preserves the original vocal line, which was gloriously sung by Bevan, but elaborates the original figured bass accompaniment to what, for all its dramatic intensity, is really an extended recitative. The voice is underpinned with thrumming, throbbing string textures, from which solo instruments peel off to punctuate the soprano’s phrases with ornamental flourishes. It’s an imaginative packaging of one of baroque music’s most tantalising fragments.
• Broadcast on Radio 3 on 18 January, and then available on BBC Sounds until 17 February.
