George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
Harp Concerto in B flat, Op. 4 No.6, BWV294 (1736) [11:11]
Apollo e Dafne, HWV122 (1710) [43:05]
Concerto grosso in B flat, HWV312 (1710-24) [8:18]
Sosarme, HWV 30 Act 2 scene XIII; In mille dolci modi (1732) [6:37]
Osian Ellis (harp)
Thomas Hemsley (baritone)
Arda Mandikian, Margaret Ritchie (soprano)
Alfred Deller (counter-tenor)
Geraint Jones Orchestra/Geraint Jones
Boyd Neel Orchestra/Thurston Dart
Saint Cecilia Orchestra/Anthony Lewis
rec. 1955/57, BBC broadcasts
No texts
CAMEO CLASSICS CC9127 [69:28]
It’s only as volumes are released that we begin to become aware of the breadth of interests displayed by Richard Itter of Lyrita fame, many of whose off-air recordings are now being released by Cameo Classics. A set of Haydn symphonies has just appeared that spans the years 1952-60 and here we have a sterling single-disc focus on Handel, orchestral and vocal, from the years 1955 and 1957. The names are familiar; Osian Ellis, Thurston Dart, Anthony Lewis, Deller and the redoubtable and estimable Thomas Hemsley and Arda Mandikian. This slice of mid-50s British musical life captures many of the musicians concerned in their youth. Ellis was not yet 30, and harpsichordist and conductor Dart was only in his mid-30s. Even Anthony Lewis, who must have seemed near-venerable even then, was still a month short of 40 when he directed this extract with Deller from Sosarme.
The confluence of the Boyd Neel Orchestra - active since the 30s and local practitioners of Baroque style as well as the contemporary muse - and Dart in the Harp Concerto and Concerto grosso alerts one to the progressive strand in performance of such music at the time. Though the bass line and string vibrato is inevitably heavier than was to become the norm – so much the worse for the norm – Dart directs with finesse. It was he who rewrote for harp the original Handelian solo part, which was for lute and harp and which Handel then codified in his arrangement for organ as Op.4 No.6. It’s a perfect vehicle for the youthful Ellis who, two years later, was to win a Grand Prix du Disque for his l’Oiseau Lyre recording of the work by which time, of course, he was almost ready to join the LSO and enjoy a stellar musical career. His clarity of articulation brings great warmth. The Concerto grosso comes from the same concert and offers a concise example of Dart’s skilful and perceptive direction. This isn’t one of the Op.6 set, which the 1936 Boyd Neel ensemble had recorded under their namesake founder.
The centrepiece of the programme is the cantata Apollo e Dafne, performed at the Royal Festival Hall on 10 January 1955. A commercial recording of the work had been released in 1951 in which Bruce Boyce and Margaret Ritchie were directed by Anthony Lewis. Here Geraint Jones and his eponymous orchestra accompany Thomas Hemsley (baritone) and Arda Mandikian (soprano) in a 43-minute performance that comfortably surpasses it in conviction and theatrical flair. The two singers made their mark in individual projects - the soprano sang in Beecham’s delightful live performance of Grétry’s Zémire et Amor from Bath whilst both Helmsley and Mandikian sang in Flagstad’s Dido and Aeneas LP. Helmsley was always a personable and credible stage performer. Unlike Boyce in his recording, Helmsley’s confident divisions bite without strain and he puts across both recits and arias with convincing strength of voice and malleability of characterisation. He is thoroughly charming in Come rosa in su la spina. The winds – the bassoon and oboe especially – make a fine showing and the orchestral introduction to the soprano’s Felicissima quest’alma is beguiling indeed, as is Mandikian’s singing. The ultimately devastating movement from the tripping gaiety of Mie piante correte to Dafne, dove sei tu is done with emotive candour and quasi-operatic force. Yes, the recitatives are slower than one would like but that was the fashion and the move thence to the succeeding arias a little ponderous but heard sympathetically this is all very enjoyable. It’s been captured in excellent sound; clear, crisp and without distortion.
The finale is a recitative and aria from Sosarme with Alfred Deller in good voice, in which we hear very briefly in the recit from Margaret Ritchie, who had sung in that Apollo e Dafne
LP with Anthony Lewis and was a fine singer. This February 1955 studio
broadcast performance of the work, from which this is a brief extract, was
made at around the same time that Lewis recorded the piece for Decca. It’s
been multiply reissued, rather surprisingly for so vintage a performance (review).
There are no texts but full and helpful notes from Christopher Webber. Some listeners seem incapable of turning back the musical clock, so mired have they become in current performance practice. But these examples are hardly monolithic and stand in the continuum of Handel performance practice in Britain in the mid-point of the twentieth century. As such they have something to say and offer leading conductors, instrumentalists, and singers in full communicative flight.
Jonathan Woolf
