United Kingdom Handel, Messiah, HWV 56 (1741): Mary Bevan (soprano), Anna Harvey (mezzo-soprano), Oliver Johnston (tenor), Jonathan Lemalu (bass), English Concerto Chorus, Goldsmiths Choral Union, Highgate Choral Society, Philharmonia Orchestra / Brian Wright (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London, 4.12.2022. (CC)
Raymond Gubbay’s Christmas Festival 2022 extravaganzas deliver with them huge publicity, shiny programmes and, on this occasion, a Messiah from the distant previous. In distinction with John Nelson’s most up-to-date efficiency at Coventry Cathedral (overview click on right here), Brian Wright’s Messiah was a humid squib at finest. The Philharmonia Orchestra was listed with many names I didn’t recognise – just like the Berliner Philharmoniker has been identified to wheel out a ‘B’ crew, was the Philharmonia doing the identical factor?
Anyone who remembers Sir Malcolm Sargent’s Liverpool Messiah (with soloists corresponding to Isobel Baillie, Gladys Ripley and Norman Walker) will discover many parallels in Wright’s method – massed choruses prime amongst them (right here with the women filling the whole thing of the choir stalls, leaving the gents to take up row after row on the stage itself. Wright’s speeds had been, to place it mildly, usually on the sluggish facet (‘Comfort ye’ a very good old style eight in a bar; a paralysed ‘Pastoral Symphony’ preserved in aspic). The hazard of sluggish speeds is that the music can sag – and sag it did all too typically, not least within the remaining providing of Part I, ‘His Yoke is easy’. The Part III ‘Worthy is the Lamb’ was huge, sluggish, ponderous, un-Handelian, as was the ultimate ‘Amen’.
The different hazard is that the music may truly cease in mid-movement, because the refrain ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ that opens Part II threatened. Ensemble was a recurring downside, beginning with ‘Ev’ry valley’ and lengthening into many choral actions. ‘And he shall purify’ was problematical for the strained massed sopranos and marred by some Romanticised phrasing.
The 4 soloists had three absolute standouts: Mary Bevan had every thing one may need for a soloist on this work: purity of voice, and full resonance with the textual content – and able to sustaining a line at these speeds too, no imply achievement. Also, Jonathan Lemalu was mightily spectacular, not least in ‘The Trumpet Shall Sound’ (wonderful taking part in from trumpeter Alan Thomas right here). Right from the beginning, Lemalu provided pure excellence. The mezzo-soprano Anna Harvey was equally spectacular, a correct mezzo (not a contralto) who formed her traces fantastically. If tenor Oliver Johnston was extra nondescript in his contributions and tended in the direction of the Puccinian in Part II (his biography, tellingly, incorporates preciously little reference to something which may vaguely be construed as ‘early’ music), this remained a usually fantastic general lineup. Just a lineup that had lots to cope with.
There had been a number of events the orchestra and/or refrain opened actions scrappily – Wright’s path hardly appeared the clearest and with this many individuals at his disposal, it confirmed. One of the largest casualties was the well-known, beloved refrain ‘For unto us a child is born’. Failed upbeats and scrappy-achieved anacruses had been a daily a part of this efficiency.
So, sadly, this was removed from a recommendable efficiency. It functioned extra as a Rückblick to choral traditions and musical attitudes previous, however even then, performances such because the Sargent referenced above have much more to advocate them.
Colin Clarke