Intimate performances of Handel’s Messiah, at one time impossible to find in Britain, are nowadays the norm, and life has become better because of it.
Yet, despite their welcomely smaller scale, not all intimate performances are good ones, and few are quite as good as the Dunedin Consort’s in the close acoustics of the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh, where this year’s showed exactly what a good performance should sound like.
Though not always of quite the most impeccable polish, its three-hour span - even when taken fast, as it now usually is, Messiah remains a long work, with plenty of scope for minor mishaps - it was preceded on this occasion by an afternoon Messiah for Children from the same forces and was due to be followed the next night by a further performance at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery.
Despite this pressure on the tiny group of singers and instrumentalists - and the smaller the group the more exposed the detail - the results possessed an authority, vitality, and responsiveness that went far beyond the mere notes of the music.
With the orchestra mostly on the conductor’s left and the choristers - twelve in all, four of them the soloists - on his right, detail was needle-sharp, light, alert, never limp, even in the flare-up of the Hallelujah Chorus.
Words were crystal clear, rhythms bouncing, cadences keenly pushed into the textures without old-fashioned plink-plonks, and orchestral descriptiveness - Handel’s flair for onomatopoeia - was jabbingly vivid.
The endearingly wandering sheep moved with a due sense of comedy. The soloists were Mhairi Lawson, Rowan Hellier, Matthew Long, and Matthew Brook. The little band of altos had a counter-tenor planted in their midst, an audible and striking effect. John Butt, one hand on the harpsichord, the other shooting aloft, was the irresistibly unflagging conductor.
29 December 2015
Yet, despite their welcomely smaller scale, not all intimate performances are good ones, and few are quite as good as the Dunedin Consort’s in the close acoustics of the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh, where this year’s showed exactly what a good performance should sound like.
Though not always of quite the most impeccable polish, its three-hour span - even when taken fast, as it now usually is, Messiah remains a long work, with plenty of scope for minor mishaps - it was preceded on this occasion by an afternoon Messiah for Children from the same forces and was due to be followed the next night by a further performance at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery.
Despite this pressure on the tiny group of singers and instrumentalists - and the smaller the group the more exposed the detail - the results possessed an authority, vitality, and responsiveness that went far beyond the mere notes of the music.
With the orchestra mostly on the conductor’s left and the choristers - twelve in all, four of them the soloists - on his right, detail was needle-sharp, light, alert, never limp, even in the flare-up of the Hallelujah Chorus.
Words were crystal clear, rhythms bouncing, cadences keenly pushed into the textures without old-fashioned plink-plonks, and orchestral descriptiveness - Handel’s flair for onomatopoeia - was jabbingly vivid.
The endearingly wandering sheep moved with a due sense of comedy. The soloists were Mhairi Lawson, Rowan Hellier, Matthew Long, and Matthew Brook. The little band of altos had a counter-tenor planted in their midst, an audible and striking effect. John Butt, one hand on the harpsichord, the other shooting aloft, was the irresistibly unflagging conductor.
29 December 2015
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