A visitor could have attended what was billed as the Big Concert, with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in an outdoor pavilion in the Raploch district of Stirling, Scotland, with some 450 local children taking part.
But I came here to this West Midlands city to attend the British premiere of the eminent English composer Jonathan Harvey’s “Weltethos” (“World Ethos”), an 85-minute work for multiple choruses, orchestra and narrator. Edward Gardner conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and three of the four choruses it maintains.
The libretto for this mystical yet fitful, searing score is by the Swiss theologian Hans Küng, the president of the Global Ethic Foundation, which seeks to foster peace among the religions of the world by highlighting common ethical and philosophical values. Mr. Harvey has described the Küng text as a “huge lied with six similar strophes”; it mixes narrative with excerpts from the texts and teachings of Confucianism as well as from those of the five major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
“Weltethos” had its premiere last October, with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle, who led the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1980 to 1998, a tenure that defined his early career and raised the ensemble, founded in 1920, to the ranks of international orchestras. Mr. Rattle maintains close ties to Birmingham, and Simon Halsey, the orchestra’s chorus director, is also the chief conductor of the Berlin Radio Choir.
Thursday night’s performance took place in the orchestra’s gleaming, inviting Symphony Hall, which is celebrating its 21st anniversary. There was a big to-do last year for the 20th anniversary, but the orchestra was not about to miss the tie-in to the London 2012 Festival and the Olympic Games. The Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons, who has been the music director in Birmingham since 2008, had longstanding commitments elsewhere when this concert was planned. Mr. Gardner, the music director of the English National Opera, has been Birmingham’s principal guest conductor since 2010.
The idea of an epic work that aims to foster understanding among world religions may seem impossibly lofty if not pretentious. But Mr. Harvey has written books on inspiration and spirituality. He was approached by the Berlin Philharmonic with the idea of collaborating with Mr. Küng, and found common ground with that sober-minded theologian, who has written that ethics “is not an actual situation, it is a desired situation,” not a “vague theory” but a “very practical matter.”
There is nothing vague or sentimental about the music in this sinewy, often frenetic and complex score, structured in six parts. The first section, “Humanity,” which explores Confucian thinking, begins with an orchestral prelude. Eerie sustained tones on the organ and pungent, soft cluster chords provide a backdrop to repetitive rhythms and twittering riffs for the large battery of percussion instruments. A speaker (here the actor Samuel West) then delivers Mr. Küng’s narrative about Confucius while the orchestra responds with restless bursts, piercing harmonies and grumbling ostinatos.
The chorus, as if contemplating what has just been said, whispers phrases back. When the chorus breaks into full-throated singing of a quotation from Confucius (“A man without humanity, what use to him is music?”), the orchestra swells with skittish counterpoint and pummeling percussion. This section ends with voices of children (the orchestra’s combined youth and children’s choruses) singing, “We have a future.”
That the subsequent five sections maintain the overall structure of the first enhances the ritualistic power of the piece. Mr. Harvey writes in a note that for this work, with its subject, he thought it essential to be musically direct. The music is direct but also complex. In passage after passage a multiplicity of textures and elements happens at once.
During the second part, “Golden Rule,” focusing on Moses and Judaism, the music breaks into a stern, frantic gaggle of voices and instruments. And in “Nonviolence,” when the chorus quotes a Hindu text calling for kindness and renunciation, the music has a slashing, relentless power. Clearly, striving for nonviolence is serious business.
In certain places the score breaks into two simultaneous parts in separate tempos, requiring a second conductor (here, Michael Seal). Over all, Mr. Gardner led a colorful, dramatic and organic performance.
The choristers filled the seats behind the stage, reducing the capacity of this handsome auditorium in the round from 2,200 to about 1,800. For all the attention the event received and all the effort the orchestra and chorus put into this single, significant performance, there were quite a few empty seats. But those present seemed moved and let silence linger for half a minute at the end before breaking into a long, ardent ovation.
Unfortunately, Mr. Harvey, 73, was too ill to attend. He has been struggling with a motor-neuron disease for some time. In October the Miller Theater at Columbia University will feature him in a Composer Portraits concert, but he will not be there.
At a preconcert event, an official from the London 2012 Festival, which runs through Sept. 9, said that all told, there will be thousands of events at 900 sites, with 10 million free tickets available.

The London 2012 Festival continues through Sept. 9; festival.london2012.com.

New York Times