Though Berlioz professed himself an agnostic, he was drawn throughout his life to the theatrical potential of Christian narrative and ceremony, and his 1854 oratorio L’Enfance du Christ, superbly performed here by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner, is in many ways one of his most remarkable scores.
Dramatising the circumstances that led to the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt, it deals with the plight of refugees under persecution in ways that still seem startlingly relevant. It’s a profoundly humane work. Berlioz’s compassion extends even to Herod in his lonely, superstitious agony; and the closing pages have an almost unbearable poignancy and sincerity – the product, his biographer David Cairns suggests, of Berlioz’s reflections on the certainties of his Catholic childhood before religious doubt set in.
An exemplary Berliozian, Gardner conducted with great refinement and intelligence, keenly alert to the music’s shifts in mood and carefully balancing drama with contemplation. The opening March, for the Roman soldiers patrolling occupied Jerusalem, spread a pall of unease over the scenes with Herod that followed, and there was real tension at the start of part three, when the holy family arrive in Saïs, initially to be greeted with rejection before finally finding refuge with an Ishmaelite family. The orchestral playing was immaculate in its controlled poise, the singing touching in its sincerity.
The voices of the BBC Singers, cast as the Angels, drifted down sweet and unearthly from the Barbican gallery. On the platform, the BBC Symphony Chorus sang with restrained fervour, nowhere more so than in the unaccompanied closing chorus that leads the work to its final, affirmative amens. The soloists were strong. Robert Murray made an outstanding, lyrical Narrator. Karen Cargill sounded ravishing: Ô Mon Cher Fils was wonderful in its tenderness. Étienne Dupuis sharply contrasted Joseph’s assertive dignity with Polydorus’s world-weary authority. Matthew Rose sang Herod’s Ô Misère des Rois with baleful splendour and was deeply touching as the Ishmaelite Father in part three. A beautiful performance of an exceptionally moving work.
