Handel: Messiah (Concert Review - performing.artshub.com.au, 2009)

I noticed in the program notes to the sold-out performance of Messiah last night that the first performance by the MSO of this much loved Handel oratorio was given 100 years ago in 1909.

The first performance ever of the Messiah (after a public rehearsal a few days before) was given in 1742 on Tuesday April 13 – Easter - at the New Musick Hall, Fishamble Street, Dublin in Ireland. Handel already enjoyed a considerable reputation at the time and that much lauded performance led to more coolly received performance in London the following year, in March. From around 1750 onwards the work was performed regularly and has grown in popularity and stature ever since.

Like most of Handel’s other oratorios - a form Handel increasing favoured over the logistical and technically more demanding (and financially less remunerative) opera format - the text is taken from biblical Old Testament narratives (including two sections from the Hebrew Bible). The libretto was assembled by Charles Jennens who provided texts for several other of Handel’s works. The full Messiah comprises three parts: the first around Advent themes (from the prophesy of Christ’s birth to the Nativity), the second around Christ’s Passion and Ascension and the last around Revelation and eschatology; the last judgment and Christ’s reassuring triumph over death and sin.

So why then is a work first performed at Easter, based on Old Covenant sources a Christmas favorite? The tradition of Advent performance, in the period before Christmas- started just after Handel’s death and may reflect the amenability of Messiah to adaptation and reformatting. Christmas versions often only make use of the first section repositioning the famous Hallelujah as the climax. It has always been a flexible work. Handel himself frequently altered and adapted Messiah to suit local orchestras and circumstances. After his death Mozart wrote an arrangement in German and some productions have garnered massive orchestral forces, up to 2000 singers in one instance.

On Saturday the MSO opted for a production in sympathy with the earlier Handel productions in scale and style. And it was an excellent performance. Part of the enduring popularity of Messiah, with performers and audiences alike, relates to the diversity of sources and antecedents that Handel drew on to compose the work (in only 3 weeks) in London the summer before its first performance. Conceived as an oratorio, a text set to music, Handel’s fondness of Italian Opera shows through. For the performers the diversity of source allows the opportunity for some beautiful and delicate singing

In our age when Christmas sentiment is the bastard child of late Victorian Germanic taste and ‘Disneyized’ iconographies, it is hard to imagine the emotional connection that must have existed in Handel’s day when, for most, the words of the oratorio would have been accepted as literal truth.

Counter tenor Clint van der Linde, whose singing was precise yet delicately ornamented and beautiful in the elegance of its tone and line; infused his art with a hint of the drama that must have transfixed audiences in Handel’s time. So too soprano Miriam Allan achieved perfect balance accompanied in some section only by the continuo (the artist was omitted from the notes), first violin (Peter Edwards, Assistant Principal), principal cellist (David Berlin) and principle double bassist (Steve Reeves). The delicacy and gentler timbre of the strings, in particular the lower strings, melded with the gentle grace of Allan’s polished voice at times so softly, yet audibly, that you were fearful your own quickening heart beat might distract the ear.

Tenor Paul McMahon and baritone Jonathan Lemalu, especially when accompanied by the choral were stirring.

While there was some dissent in the audience as to whether the great restraint in use of vibrato - especially in the upper strings - while true to performance style of the Handel’s day, might have been at the cost of a slightly cavernous sound in some passages, the cheers and three ovations left no doubt at how much the audience enjoyed the performance.

As the celebration of Christmas continues to be degraded by the vulgarities of mass consumerism, the transcending quality of the MSO’s Messiah, in its one hundredth year, gives some comfort for the future. Notwithstanding that, CDs were available for signing in the foyer at the conclusion of the performance - Handel - ever the businessman would not have been too offended.

Unfortunately there is no longer a chance to hear the work live; both performances sold out but the Saturday performance reviewed here has been recorded for later broadcast by ABC Classical FM.

Garry Anderson