Messiah
Queen’s Hall 18/12/24
Dunedin Consort
John Butt director and harpsichord, Rachel Redmond soprano, Helen Charlston mezzo-soprano, Samuel Boden tenor, Matthew Brook baritone
The full house for the Dunedin Consort’s ‘Messiah’ in the Queen’s Hall tonight reminds us that this concert is now an annual ritual for many. ‘Ritual’ in no way implies ‘routine’ and tonight’s exceptional cast of singers and musicians ensure a compelling performance with many fresh insights into the music and text. It’s a few years since I’ve heard the Dunedin Consort’s version, and it’s still a surprise to see how few musicians are on stage: eleven string players, a small organ (Jan Waterfield) and John Butt directing from the harpsichord – two trumpets and timpani arrive later – and just twelve singers, arrayed diagonally in two rows across the back corner to the director’s right, lower voices behind, higher voices in front (there’s a male alto). Tonight’s four soloists sing as part of the Chorus and step forward to sing their parts. The instrumentalists’ energy and subtle responses to the music and John Butt’s direction provide the authentic period sound which underpins the brilliance of Handel’s vocal writing.
As John Butt wrote in his 2007 essay printed in the programme, these musicians are playing a revolutionary work with a huge purpose, to describe “the incarnation, ministry, passion, resurrection and future promise of Christ”. While combining Old Testament prophecy with New Testament narrative was a well-known formula in earlier musical works (Bach’s ‘Matthew Passion’ and ‘Christmas Oratorio’ are examples), Handel’s librettist Charles Jennens included some obscure texts and odd juxtapositions, which might have deterred an audience used to theatrical oratorios with a clear story-line. Nevertheless ‘Messiah’ became tremendously popular very quickly, and has remained so, though orchestras and choral forces expanded from the later eighteenth right through to the twentieth century, before, in the last forty years, slimming down.
Parts 1 and 2 of the oratorio move from darkness into light. After the unsettled orchestral opening, the comfort offered in the first recitative and air proves temporary. Tenor Samuel Boden has a fresh voice which is easy on the ear, and, after he negotiates the tricky ornamented opening to ‘Comfort ye’, he is more at ease in the quicker-paced ‘Every valley shall be exalted’. In Matthew Brook’s recitative which follows, the Old Testament God promises to shake the heavens and earth. The baritone’s performance here and throughout is dramatic, with controlled rage a speciality! Mezzo Helen Charlston’s first air continues this god-fearing trend. Clearly enunciating with well-considered ornamentation, especially on the prolonged last syllables, she delivers a convincingly awed assessment of a God who is ‘like a refiner’s fire’, which the following chorus confirms will be ‘purifying’.
Her next recitative and air change this mood, as she predicts ‘the virgin shall bear a son’. She looks upwards and smiles during ‘Oh thou that tellest great tidings to Zion.’ Three weeks ago in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Helen Charlston sang the three linked arias associated with the Virgin Mary, managing to personalise the metaphorical in a memorable way. Tonight, by altering her style of delivery between these two arias, she also finds the personal resonances in biblical imagery and sets the tone of optimism for the remainder of Part 1. Matthew Brook’s second appearance also contrasts with bis first, celebrating how darkness covering the earth changes to light.
Scottish soprano, Rachel Redmond impressed as Papagena in the EIF’s concert ‘Magic Flute’ in 2023, and she is fully in command of her first recitative and air late in Part 1, when, unusually in this oratorio, she has to assume the voice of a character – the angel announcing ‘’Glory to God”, a lovely part for a soprano which she makes the most of. In the opening of ‘Rejoice greatly’ she emphasises the first words with a staccato delivery, and the impressive runs in the higher register are well-controlled. Her clear voice and calm demeanour show promise for her future career. Two trumpeters in the side balcony accompany the chorus.
After the pastoral glories of Part I’s conclusion the sombre opening to part 2 and its gradual brightening towards the redemption is controlled in a large part by the chorus, which works through metaphoric language in “Behold the Lamb of God” and “All we like sheep’ (the latter sung with a light touch) towards the dramatic representation of the crowd in “He trusted in God that he would deliver him”. All this surrounds Helen Charlston’s air ‘He was despised’. Butt’s programme essay notes that there are few references to Christ or Jesus in this text, and the personal pronoun ‘he’ is also used sparingly: so this air takes us to the heart of Christ’s passion, the suffering of the man. Her initial exposition is plain, even bleak, and unadorned, while the central section, ‘He gave his back to the smiters,’ is sung over a string accompaniment of short percussive notes. The slow da capo is beautifully, though not elaborately, ornamented - a moving performance. After the chorus’s celebratory ‘He is the king of Glory,’ the mood alters abruptly with the baritone solo ‘Why should the nations so furiously rage against him’ – a defiant text which was intended to represent the trials of the early church. Matthew Brook’s stern declamation direct to the audience, with his score tucked under his arm, surely also has secular relevance for this, as indeed, every age - a shocking anti-war sentiment which is anything but pacific. The choir tackle the following chorus with the same precise rage - a reminder that holy wars are as fearsome as unholy ones. Meanwhile the trumpeters and timpanist are on stage for the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. The small forces make a marvellous sound, although, perhaps heretically, here and in ‘Worthy is the Lamb’, I wonder if a few extra voices wouldn’t go amiss!
The high point in Rachel Redmond’s evening is ‘I know that my redeemer liveth’ which she sings with convincing radiance, setting the tone for the warmth and security of Part 3. The dynamic changes of pace in the next chorus foreshadow Matthew Brook’s recitative promising how “we will all be changed in the twinkling of an eye.’ Many works of art from Bosch to Stanley Spencer imagine the Last Judgement, but none is as exuberant and reassuring as Handel’s ‘The Trumpet Shall Sound’, sung tonight by one of its finest exponents. Paul Sharp plays the natural trumpet with technical brilliance and sensitivity to his singing partner. Handel surely intended entertainment to be added to the qualities delivered by this aria. In the da capo the echoing, prefiguring and sometimes witty competition in the baritone’s and trumpeter’s collaboration is wonderful to hear. And the choruses which follow, with double trumpets and timpani round off a splendid evening.
We are fortunate in Edinburgh that the musicians of the Dunedin Consort led by John Butt return “home” every year with Handel’s sublime and exciting music, which, whatever our beliefs, brings us closer to our own humanity.
