Page 196 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year

Apocalypse was hardly less high-octane, albeit now on a religious theme. Joana Carneiro conducted a highly
colourful BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

It might have seemed a reasonable bet that the new symphony would follow in a similar vein, but the
bookies would have been wrongfooted. MacMillan’s new choral Symphony No.5, subtitled Le grand
Inconnu, is an otherworldly contemplation of the Holy Spirit.

Where the afternoon’s two showpiece scores punched out one ear-catching contrast after another, the
symphony moves patiently, almost imperceptibly. It opens with the choir breathing softly, followed
tonelessly by the wind instruments, as if the breath of God is emerging from an eternal silence. At the end of
the second part a memorable passage has the choir divided into 20 parts, harking back to the Tudor era
(MacMillan had been working on a counterpart to Tallis’s 40-part Spem in alium). At the end the living fire
flickers and fades. At times, the music flirts with the timeless aura of minimalism or the music of other
religions, but always draws back to regain its own path.

The feeling lingers that MacMillan is searching his subconscious in a way he has not before. Harry
Christophers conducted the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the combined choirs of The Sixteen and
Genesis Sixteen, for whom the work was commissioned. It is hard to imagine it without their expertise, but
this numinous symphony will surely reward other audiences prepared to listen with the patience and
concentration it deserves.

★★★★☆ eif.co.uk

The first London performance of MacMillan’s Symphony No.5 will be at the Barbican on October 14

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