Matthew Passion at London Handel Festival

6/4/2012

I reviewed it for Bachtrack. Read it here. A little disappointing overall, mainly due to dull direction from Laurence Cummings and dull playing of the London Handel Orchestra. Singing mostly lovely, with Anna Devin again impressing (it turns out she was the first nymph that I liked so much in the recent ROH Rusalka). Emilie Renard who I've seen before as a wonderful Sesto was not quite so impressive here, and I think it's just a tessitura issue - the "alto" arias require a real solidity down low.

Here's a preview:

Probably no other work in the repertoire has such mystical status as Bach's Matthew Passion. Phrases like "The Greatest Work in the Western Canon", trip glibly off the tongue while failing to illuminate its greatness or acknowledge its strangeness. It is the sacred cow of sacred cows. It is of course an extraordinary piece: the beauty of the arias, with their endlessly inventive Arietta-recit introductions laden with effects and affekt not to mention the amazing musical characterisation of Jesus, the feeling that we are constantly dipping into real life scenes between the Evangelist's explanations, the choral interjections, and everywhere the harmony surprising no matter how many times one has heard it. One could go on.

Nash Ensemble with Felicity Lott

The Nash Ensemble are one of the finest chamber groups in London so its always a pleasure to hear them. I reviewed this concert for Bachtrack. Here's a taster:

The Nash Ensembles' "Echoes of Romanticism" series at the Wigmore Hall, of which this concert was a part, is not really an exploration of romanticism as such, but rather a charting of the rise and fall of Teutonic music between Mozart and Schoenberg. This is a fascinating story to tell, and this evening provided a particular insight into Richard Strauss – a key and particularly divisive figure in this narrative, his career spanning as it did from the highest high-romanticism to the era's last glorious gasps in the perenially celebrated works of his "Indian Summer" period. Wagner and Mozart, his two musical heroes, were each represented by a work which seemed to have a particular bearing or resonance on the Strauss work presented here in excerpts: his final opera Capriccio.

Read the full review here. Interesting to hear Lott at this stage in her career. At 64 it's amazing she's performing at all, but it really is quite a wide vibrato she has now. I've never been a super big fan as she often feels a little reserved and noncommital in her delivery, but the Jarvi discs she recorded of Strauss orchestral songs for instance are absolutely stonkingly beautiful.