Booming sounds bring Tate’s vast space to life

London Symphony Orchestra Turbine Hall, Tate Modern ★★★★☆

Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall once seemed as grand as a cathedral, but these days one barely gives it a second glance. One of the virtues of Saturday night’s spectacular from the London Symphony Orchestra was that it brought the space itself back to life. The booming, echoing sounds made the vastness tangible.

As for the music itself, it consisted of two post-war masterworks, which, as conductor Simon Rattle said in his pre-performance chat, were alike in being great, but different in every other respect. Messiaen’s Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum offers an awe-inspiring image of the resurrection, with brass chorales and mighty gong-strokes representing the Trinity flavoured with twittering birdsong from massed winds and jagged Indian rhythms.

In this space, with the orchestra on a raised platform at the far end of the hall, the towering chords seemed to become molten. One’s ears couldn’t discern the music’s source, which appeared mysteriously to boom out from the walls themselves.

Then came Stockhausen’s Gruppen (Groups), a piece written for three orchestras in that nervy “plinkyplunk” idiom that was once typical of modern music. Part of the fun was watching the choreographed movements of the three conductors Rattle, Matthias Pintscher and Duncan Ward. The wit and delicacy of the plinks and plunks was a delight, and the moment when Stockhausen tossed brass chords from orchestra to orchestra was thrilling.

But in the quieter moments one became aware of the murmur of Tate Modern’s usual public. If only the LSO could play the same programme at midnight, in perfect silence, it would pack three times the punch.

The concert is available to listen to on BBC Radio 3 online