Times have changed for Handel’s Messiah since I first reviewed a performance of it in The Scotsman in the 1960s.
On that occasion the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union’s annual performance, given at noon on New Year’s Day in the Usher Hall, was a heavyweight event, a penitential antidote in notoriously alcohol-free surroundings to the previous day’s jollifications.
I dreaded it, and wrote a preview, maligned by stuffy readers, asking why it always had to be Messiah, portentously performed by a big choir and dreary orchestra, featuring star soloists who perhaps did not even know each other and a Hallelujah Chorus for which everybody, audience included, stood up. The conductor in those days was Herrick Bunney, much more of a Bachian (an admirable one) than an exuberant Handelian. He took the annual ritual as it had been handed down to him, and any changes he made were seldom for the better. In response the audience brought flasks of tea and sandwich lunches for the long interval.
“Crumbs in the corridors,” my predecessor Christopher Grier once sighed. It was hardly an event for real Handelians, who loved his other oratorios also, to look forward to.
Today such performances still exist in Britain, but circumstances have generally changed for the better. Modern slimline performances, sung at cracking speeds by small choruses and accompanied by stylish orchestras, are the order of the day. Colin Davis and Charles Mackerras,while still employing quite large forces, were the first to make the move towards lighter, springier rhythms, with soloists who knew how to achieve recognisable musical unity of purpose. Today, even better, we are able to hear the work in smaller, more intimate halls, sung by choristers who are themselves quite often the soloists.
In Scotland, the John Currie Singers were the first to set the ball rolling at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. Now it is the Dunedin Consort, directed by the effervescent John Butt, whose performance could be said to tick all the Handelian boxes. Even if you hear no other Christmas performances, make sure you hear this one at the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh on December 20 or The Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow on the 21st. You will not even have to rise to your feet for the Hallelujah Chorus and the bar will doubtless be open at the interval.
19 December 2015
On that occasion the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union’s annual performance, given at noon on New Year’s Day in the Usher Hall, was a heavyweight event, a penitential antidote in notoriously alcohol-free surroundings to the previous day’s jollifications.
I dreaded it, and wrote a preview, maligned by stuffy readers, asking why it always had to be Messiah, portentously performed by a big choir and dreary orchestra, featuring star soloists who perhaps did not even know each other and a Hallelujah Chorus for which everybody, audience included, stood up. The conductor in those days was Herrick Bunney, much more of a Bachian (an admirable one) than an exuberant Handelian. He took the annual ritual as it had been handed down to him, and any changes he made were seldom for the better. In response the audience brought flasks of tea and sandwich lunches for the long interval.
“Crumbs in the corridors,” my predecessor Christopher Grier once sighed. It was hardly an event for real Handelians, who loved his other oratorios also, to look forward to.
Today such performances still exist in Britain, but circumstances have generally changed for the better. Modern slimline performances, sung at cracking speeds by small choruses and accompanied by stylish orchestras, are the order of the day. Colin Davis and Charles Mackerras,while still employing quite large forces, were the first to make the move towards lighter, springier rhythms, with soloists who knew how to achieve recognisable musical unity of purpose. Today, even better, we are able to hear the work in smaller, more intimate halls, sung by choristers who are themselves quite often the soloists.
In Scotland, the John Currie Singers were the first to set the ball rolling at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. Now it is the Dunedin Consort, directed by the effervescent John Butt, whose performance could be said to tick all the Handelian boxes. Even if you hear no other Christmas performances, make sure you hear this one at the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh on December 20 or The Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow on the 21st. You will not even have to rise to your feet for the Hallelujah Chorus and the bar will doubtless be open at the interval.
19 December 2015
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