United Kingdom Handel, Messiah, HWV 56 (1741): Lucy Crowe (soprano), Alex Potter (countertenor), Michael Spyres (tenor), Matthew Brook (bass), Choir of The English Concert, The English Concert / John Nelson (conductor). Coventry Cathedral, 24.11.2022. Reviewed from recording streamed on medici.television.
It has been a dream of conductor John Nelson to current Handel’s evergreen Messiah at Coventry Cathedral, the place of the premiere of Britten’s War Requiem. Nelson, in an introduction, states he hopes this Messiah could be a message of hope in a time of a number of conflicts and likewise refers to this Messiah as ‘a world premiere’ of types because it incorporates ‘for the first time in history all seven versions Handel wrote during his lifetime’.
With the English Concert on prime type within the Overture, this instantly promised a lot. Textures have been flippantly sprung, dissonances relished, and there was clear rapport – all through, the orchestra responded to the music’s each shift, most noticeably probably on the bass accompagnato ‘For behold, darkness shall cover the earth’, the place the orchestra darkened its tone significantly for Matthew Brook’s brilliantly delivered solo (his ‘The Trumpet Shall Sound’, a lot later in Part 3, was simply as imposing, with trumpeter Mark Bennett), as they did additionally on the opening of the second half, getting ready for the choral entries of ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ .
The efficiency had all of the rhythmic pointing anticipated from the English Concert – ‘Lift up your heads, o ye gates’ a working example. Interesting too, how trendy the strings sounded in ‘Thou shalt break them’, the tenor motion simply previous the well-known Hallelujah Chorus. Nelson’s tempi appeared good all through, not least within the difficult penultimate ‘If God be for us, who can be against us’.
But it was the emphasis on the meditative features of the Messiah that made Nelson’s interpretation so very profound, the vulnerability of the violins in ‘He was despised’ an enormous revelation. Contrasting this have been some visceral speeds – ‘He trusted in God that he would deliver him’ discovered the refrain nearly frenzied. The depth of ‘Thy rebuke hath broken his heart’, a tenor recitative, got here not solely from the pace however from the cautious balancing of the sustained strings. The closing ‘Amen’ refrain started as an act of the quietest, most profound worship, enabling the ultimate perorations to actually sound.
Michael Spyres is an everyday collaborator with Nelson on disc; not forgetting a memorable Berlioz Les nuits d’été in Strasbourg. This is the primary time I’ve heard Spyres in Baroque music, and his interpretation of ‘Comfort ye’ was magisterial, with excellent ornamentation, honeyed, even tone (the vary is kind of giant in that piece) and probably the most large agility in ‘Ev’ry Valley’. It is testomony to the artfully chosen soloists that countertenor Alex Potter and Spyres work so properly collectively within the Part III duet ‘O death, where is thy sting?’.
The bass Matthew Brook was one other singer who managed Handel’s perilous semiquaver melismas completely (the ‘shake’ passages in ‘This saith the Lord of hosts’, and in ‘Why do the nations so furiously rage together?’) Lucy Crowe, changing the originally-intended soprano Lisette Oropesa, and who opened the second part of the primary half, has a stupendous purity of voice (‘And lo, the angel of the Lord’). How her voice soared, too, in ‘Rejoice greatly’; Crowe’s ornamentation, too, was completely judged.
I’ve not had a lot publicity to the singing of countertenor Alex Potter, however listening to ‘But who shall abide’ from a countertenor was outstanding. Potter’s sound is pure however robust – and it needed to be, with Nelson encouraging the English Concert to supply probably the most outstanding accents – or, extra precisely maybe, violent shards of sound (one thing we heard once more in ‘All they that see him laugh him to scorn’). This was completely outstanding rethinking of ‘But who shall abide’; and the way superbly Potter formed the second half’s ‘He shall feed his flock’. The orchestral contribution to this latter is price inspecting, too, for Nelson takes it at a gradual siciliano pace, permitting for some heaviness within the strigs however by no means sounding misplaced, or the time of composition. Potter was joined by Rory McCleery from the choir for a shocking ‘How beautiful are the feet’.
The element in Nelson’s efficiency was nothing in need of miraculous: the dots within the well-known refrain, ‘For unto us a child is born’, or the cello’s grungy chord spreads at that refrain’s ‘Wonderful, Counsellor’ (simply after 24 minutes within the stream; the benefit of the medici.television stream is that one can award oneself on the spot encores, after all, which is strictly what occurred right here …). And how we heard that dotting to highly effective have an effect on within the gritty ‘Surely he hath borne our griefs’ in Part II.
Nelson is greater than skilled in working with choruses, and it confirmed in his mastery of how he marshalled his forces right here, the Choir of the English Concert in splendid type, sopranos coping brilliantly with Handel’s excessive calls for in ‘And the glory of the Lord’ and the entire producing probably the most outstanding power in ‘And he shall purify’: rightly so, as this refrain ushers within the announcement of the virgin conception. The sheer energy of ’The Lord gave the phrase’ towards the top of the second half was completely outstanding. It was good to see the eyes of the choir members transfixed by Nelson’s conducting – nobody buries their heads within the rating.
Well achieved to the medici.television engineers for sustaining the house of a cathedral acoustic whereas enabling the element to return by. A little bit of errant camerawork firstly of the Hallelujah Chorus apart, the manufacturing values are wonderful.
Nelson’s interpretation of Handel’s Messiah will likely be launched on Warner Classics/Erato in the end. The stream is accessible till Christmas Eve, 2027 to subscribers of medici.television
Colin Clarke