REVIEW: Handel's Messiah at The Glasshouse
Upholding a glorious tradition
Missed the derby match, fortunately (that’s football, for the blissfully ignorant), but it was a win win at The Glasshouse where a scintillating performance of Handel’s Messiah proved it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
They do it every year. Every year you wonder at the genius of a composer who was so feted that a statue was made of him during his lifetime – an honour usually reserved in the 18th Century for monarchs, military leaders and aristocrats. It’s in London’s V&A museum.
Messiah, though, is a superior monument, a musical one that has survived much tinkering since its first ever performance, at a charity concert in Dublin in 1742 when, to pack as many people in as possible, gentlemen were asked to remove their swords and ladies to wear dresses without hoops.
A subsequent newspaper report of the occasion stated that “words are wanting to express the exquisite delight it afforded to the admiring and crouded (sic) audience”.
Fortunately the writer, evidently being a hack of the old school, did find the words, even if the spelling was suspect.
Swords and hoops were absent on Sunday afternoon but The Glasshouse was in its Christmas glad rags (tree on the concourse, lights spelling a festive welcome) and showing once again what a fabulous asset it has been for 21 years.
And the Sage One concert hall was as ‘crouded’ as Dublin’s Fishamble Street music hall back on April 13, 1742.
Incidentally, note that spring date. It’s funny that Messiah, relating Christ’s life between the proclamations of Old Testament prophets and the victory over sin and death, has become associated with Christmas.
But for many, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without it, and Kristian Bezuidenhout (early keyboard specialist whose life’s journey has taken him from South Africa to London via Australia) was back to direct it from the harpsichord, centre stage.
In front of him, the musicians of Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia, about 50 strong – all in black, a note of gravitas in this season of jolly jumpers and reindeer headbands.
The music began to flow in accordance with the Baroque style of which Handel was a master, carrying it with us for three glorious parts (interval in Part II – “after He was despised,” the programme sheet helpfully advised).
Terrific soloists, each demonstrating in turn their vocal dexterity and causing us (me anyway) to wonder how they do it: keep pace with the ‘ah-ha-ha-ha’ demands of Handel’s score (there’ll be a proper word for it, no doubt).
The spotlight moments for Messiah soloists are shared pretty equally but first up was tenor Robin Tritschler to utter words of solace: “Comfort ye, my people…”.
Fabulous. Bar set high for the others who duly matched it: American counter-tenor Jake Ingbar; soprano Rachel Redmond (Glasgow-born, a splash of red amid the black); and bass-baritone Florian Störtz, a German who, like Handel, has settled in London.
Relatively new to the European concert scene, Störtz studied at the Royal Academy of Music, won the International Handel Singing Competition in 2023 and is a trained physicist. No own goals from him on Sunday.
The joy of any live performance lies not only in the overall effect but in the small moments of human drama: the conductor taking a reviving swig from his water bottle; the quiet arrival on stage of the musicians who can really make a noise, the trumpeters and timpanist.
It rises to a wonderful crescendo, Messiah, the Hallelujah chorus prompting the audience to its feet at the end of Part II (it’s tradition – George II is said to have begun it at the London premiere in 1743 but he might have just needed the loo; and it’s not even certain he was even there) and Anthony Thompson sending shivers down the spine in response to Störtz’s rendition of “The trumpet shall sound…”
There’s no place for a trumpet player to hide… least of all here. But there was no need. And (rhetorical question) can there be anything to match that pedestal occasion for a professional trumpet player?
Terrific performance from all… and it was just one, albeit important element of a crazily busy Christmas concert programme, details of which you’ll find on The Glasshouse website.