George Frederick HANDEL (1685-1759)
Timotheus oder Die Gewalt der Musik (1812)
(German version of Alexander’s Feast - or, the Power of Music
(1735/3), orch. Mozart 1790)
Roberta Invernizzi (soprano); Werner Güra (tenor); Gerard Finley
(bass-baritone)
Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien
Concentus Musicus Wien/Nikolaus Harnoncourt
rec. 28-29 November 2012, Musikverein, Vienna. DDD
SONY CLASSICAL 88883 704812 [62:00 + 34:00]
This is a live recording of a concert which marked the bicentenary of
the founding of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna on 29 November
1812 and the defeat of Napoleon in Moscow. The latter, heralded the possibility
of Austria’s liberation from their forced allegiance to the French.
It was thus both a cultural and a political, patriotic statement, with
Timotheus representing Austrian musical supremacy and Alexander the Emperor
who is in thrall to the musician’s art.
The concert sought to recreate the performance of “Timotheus”,
the German version of Handel’s “Alexander’s Feast”,
whose score for a German translation had been prepared by Mozart for the
Society of Nobleman in 1790 and which served as the basis of the 1812
celebration. It has so much going for it: Nikolaus Harnoncourt a few days
before his 83rd birthday, in the mature plenitude of his powers
evincing no sign of flagging and directing a very beefed up orchestra
in a performance. I quote the excellent notes: “the Concentus Musicus
fielded as many players as could be accommodated on the platform in the
Grosser Musikvereinsaal, while the Singverein of the Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde was made up of hundred or so singers … to recreate
the sort of massed sounds produced in 1812 in a large hall.”
The excitement of the occasion is enhanced by the raucous, atmospheric
period horns and a truly impressive bass drum. This was added to Mozart’s
orchestration by the first conductor, Franz von Mosel, who, to control
these large forces, used a baton for the first time in the history of
music. The choir is terrific and the playing both technically and aesthetically
of the finest. The recorded sound is big and warm.
Combine with this admixture the presence of the wonderful Gerald Finley
and the whole enterprise looks so promising. Finley in fact has relatively
little to do - only two arias and a snippet of recitative - though he
does it with such authority and panache. The other two soloists, however,
have a much larger contribution, and there’s the rub: they are both
disappointing. Werner Güra brings a slight, strangulated tenor to
his music and very little variety of tone. He struggles with the coloratura
and is audibly short of breath, at times gasping before the runs. Italian
period-specialist soprano Roberta Invernizzi is worse: it astonishes me
that a singer can go through training, begin performing then be regularly
engaged by prestigious institutions while carrying a vocal handicap that
will inevitably preclude a major career. In this case it is an applied,
wobbly vibrato that she has a habit of suddenly unleashing like a Taser
after long, swelled notes without any pulse at all. She also has a tic
of squeezing and primping phrases in a manner that is clearly meant to
be winsomely expressive but increasingly becomes merely irritating. It
seems she can sing absolutely nothing straight and rely on Handel’s
music to do the job. Surely better could have been found for such a major
musical event? As such, what could have been a landmark recording and
a real testament to “The Power of Music” becomes a might-have-been.
The much smaller scale English original is by no means the same entity
but for the best of what is some of Handel’s most winning music,
I return to the old, 1978 Philip Ledger recording on EMI Classics. Despite
also having a tenor less than ingratiating, it features Thomas Allen,
who is no second-best if I cannot have Finley, and the sopranos Helen
Donath and Sally Burgess are simply lovely.
Ralph Moore