{"id":6241,"date":"2020-12-06T14:39:59","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T14:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=6241"},"modified":"2020-12-11T10:02:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T10:02:48","slug":"handel-messiah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=6241","title":{"rendered":"Handel: Messiah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christ Church, St Leonards-on-Sea, Saturday 05 December<\/strong><\/p>\n

HPO Singers, Ensemble OrQuesta Baroque<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
Helen May soprano<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
Isabelle Haile soprano<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
Laura Fleur mezzo-soprano<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
Nathan Mercieca countertenor<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
Kieran White tenor<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
Thomas Kelly tenor<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
John Holland-Avery baritone<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
Marcio da Silva conductor\/baroque guitar<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was the first live concert I have attended for ten months so I think I may be forgiven for shedding several tears when the notes of the \u201cSinfonia\u201d died away in the atmospheric half light and Kieran White opened with \u201cComfort ye my people\u201d. It set the tone for the whole evening: a lot of fine singing, respect for some of the most arresting, uplifting music ever written and \u2013 given the privations of this strange year – an unusual sense of warm gratitude in both (distanced) performers and audience.<\/p>\n

Working with a small group of singers \u2013 only four basses \u2013 and conducting, with a lot of originality, from his baroque guitar Marcio da Silva found much clarity and precision in the chorus numbers although the necessary spacing created a challenge \u2013 the basses were to the right of the orchestra at the front with tenors to the left and sopranos and altos at the back. This placed the band in the middle of the choir and meant that sopranos were a long way from the basses, and the altos from the tenors. Inevitably there were occasional timing glitches but none of them detracted from the overall achievement.\u00a0 The unaccompanied \u201cSince by man came death\u201d was perfectly, movingly together, however and the understated opening to \u201cAmen\u201d worked really well because it left so much scope for joyful crescendi <\/em>as it developed all the way to that magical, climactic top A from the sopranos, nine bars before the end.<\/p>\n

It was a concert full of ideas too. First there was the use of a tiny Baroque orchestra who played impeccably on original instruments (or replicas)\u00a0 with Marcio da Silva on guitar and Petra Hajduchova on harpsichord.\u00a0 I grinned to see Marcia da Silva morph into percussionist and singer during \u201cHallelujah\u201d, leaving Edmund Taylor to direct from the first desk. Versatility is everything at the moment.\u00a0 I also liked the idea, in this of all years, of sharing the solo work among\u00a0seven soloists rather than four: more opportunities for more talented people.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Among the many high spots was Laura Fleur\u2019s smiling \u201cO thou that tellest\u201d. She has a lower register like spiced hot chocolate. The contrast she later brought to the stark agony of \u201cHe was despised\u201d was outstanding. I also admired the elegant, measured decoration from countertenor, Nathan Mercieca in \u201cHe shall feed his flock\u201d and John Holland-Avery is a very arresting, dramatic singer in “The Trumpet shall sound”. Then there was the \u201csounding\u201d itself with Louis Barclay\u2019s on natural trumpet \u2013 another delightful moment.<\/p>\n

Well it isn\u2019t Christmas without hearing a decent Messiah <\/em>and for a long time it looked as though this was going to be my first Messiah<\/em>-less Christmas for many decades. So thanks HPO for making this happen, despite all 2020\u2019s problems, and for the stunningly beautiful Christ Church which supports HPO by allowing them to use the premises without charge.<\/p>\n

Susan Elkin<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christ Church, St Leonards-on-Sea, Saturday 05 December HPO Singers, Ensemble OrQuesta Baroque Helen May soprano Isabelle Haile soprano Laura Fleur mezzo-soprano Nathan Mercieca countertenor Kieran White tenor Thomas Kelly tenor John Holland-Avery baritone \u00a0 Marcio da Silva conductor\/baroque guitar This … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6241"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6260,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6241\/revisions\/6260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}