Bach, Mozart and Handel

Layton’s spirited conducting makes the music sound as if it had been composed yesterday.

English conductor Stephen Layton, known internationally for his choral work, assembles an enjoyable set of Baroque and early Classical works for this concert. All three pieces we hear have a jubilant, celebratory nature. Layton’s spirited conducting makes the music sound as fresh as if it had been composed yesterday.

Bach’s church cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (1730) is one of his sacred cantatas that employs only a single soloist, in this case a soprano. The vocal writing is melismatic, decorative and technically challenging. Australian soprano Sara Macliver dispatches it not only with accuracy but, equally importantly, with expressive point. She maintains a lovely, secure legato in the plaintive second movement, “We pray in the temple where God’s glory dwells.”

In the opening and closing movements, Macliver duets with a trumpet obbligato, trading playful exchanges and superbly executed runs in close harmony. Assistant Principal Trumpet Brent Grapes plays his part with great control, period sensitivity and genuine bravado.

The orchestra, though using modern instruments, understands the Baroque style equally well, with limited vibrato from the strings and an excellent feel for cadences. This is Layton’s area, of course, and the results are unexaggeratedly authentic.

Macliver returns with Mozart’s concert aria on a sacred theme, Exsultate, jubilate. Like the Bach, this work is designed to show off the voice’s tone and flexibility. (It was famously recorded by Kiri Te Kanawa, among others.) Macliver’s performance is lovely, both exciting and uplifting in the final Alleluias. I do, however, think the very ending could be a touch brighter from the orchestra.

We certainly get that brightness with Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music (1749). At its premiere, the work brought the house down — literally, as one of the pavilions caught fire. (Fortunately, the Sydney Opera House survives this performance.)

Nobody does celebration like George Frideric Handel. Extra trumpets, horns, oboes and bassoons as well as very active timpani and snare drum join the fray for this much-loved suite. It is a reminder that Handel, for his time, had a marvellous sense of orchestral colour and balance.

The Fireworks Music provides a fitting conclusion to a short but dazzling program.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra presents Stephen Layton Conducts Bach, Mozart & Handel in the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House on 23 August.

Original: Limelight