SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

Handel, Messiah: Gerard Schwarz, conductor, Sarah Coburn, soprano, Sarah Heitzel, mezzo-soprano, Robert McPherson, tenor, Charles Robert Austin, bass-baritone, Seattle Symphony Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 18.12.2008 (BJ)


As Handel is said to have remarked when someone congratulated him on the effect a Messiah performance had on its audience, “I should be sorry if I only entertained them–I wish to make them better.”

I am not sure how much better a person I was after this season’s Seattle Symphony Messiah than before, but I certainly was richly entertained. Music director Gerard Schwarz–who charmingly applauded the sparse audience for coming out despite the snow–demonstrated a sure command of many stylistic points that have become de rigueur in these days of HIP, or “Historically Informed Performance” practice, and the result was a performance of genuinely exciting brilliance.

At times I felt the Maestro was confusing mere speed with true liveliness of expression: a tad more poise would have allowed some of the faster numbers to make a more incisive rhythmic impact. And while the idea of a “complete” Messiah is chimerical, since Handel himself was accustomed to include or drop movements according as the qualities of the singers on hand permitted or required, some of the cuts in this performance were regrettable.

But there were polished contributions from the orchestra (including spirited trumpet playing by Richard Pressley and crisp work by timpanist Michael Crusoe), excellent singing by the Seattle Symphony Chorale–especially in the arrestingly fined-down tone of passages like “Since by man came death”–and mostly beautiful performances of the solo numbers. Sarah Coburn is one of the best young lyric sopranos around, mezzo-soprano Sarah Heitzel and bass-baritone Charles Robert Austin were both strong and sensitive, and Robert McPherson’s tenor line was firmly delivered, though I am inclined to warn him that singing loudly all the time leads to diminishing returns.

In many parts of the world, it is a tradition for the audience to stand during the singing of the “Hallelujah” chorus. To this English observer, perpetuating this observance in this country today is about as royalistically absurd (since it originated when King George II stood up at that point in an early London performance, and so for protocol’s sake everyone else had to stand up too) as playing “Land of Hope and Glory” in the course of Commencement ceremonies. Nor do I think it the conductor’s place to prompt it by gesture as Schwarz did.

Still, wherever you stand (or sit) on such matters, Messiah remains an imperishable treasure. Despite all the legend that surrounds it, the work is not quite the equal of Handel’s very greatest masterpieces. That is because the composer’s supreme genius–the gift thanks to which he ranked, in Beethoven’s words, as “the master of us all”–lay in his ability to delineate character through musical means. In such of his oratorios as Theodora, Samson, Solomon, and Saul, and in operas like Giulio Cesare, Rodelinda, and Tamerlano, the action is presented directly by recognizable, individually human characters. In Messiah, by contrast with those works, and for that matter with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, where Christ speaks (and sings) for himself, the story is told in third-person terms. But it still emerged on this frigid evening as a triumphant vehicle for celebrating Christmas in a refreshingly non-sectarian spirit.

Bernard Jacobson

NB: parts of this review appeared also in the Seattle Times.

^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}