Royal Scottish National Orchestra/ McGegan, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fivestar -->
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Your support makes all the difference.Regarded by Handel as an Easter oratorio, the Messiah has come to be an essential Christmas-time celebration. The delightfully fresh music and pastoral elements of Part 1 are particularly well suited to an airing early in the New Year.
Nicholas McGegan's thoughtful approach resulted in a crisply engaging and relatively slim version with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus. He drew rhythmically incisive and sensitively phrased playing from the orchestra, with an agile string sound complemented by poetic woodwind. The bright trumpet commentary had an otherworldly dimension in its off-stage contribution to a rousing "Glory to God", and John Langdon provided a persuasive continuo texture, swivelling discreetly between harpsichord and chamber organ.
The Chorus, clearly well drilled by Stephen Williams, switched effortlessly from the madrigalesque lightness of "For unto us a Child is born" to the more ceremonial style of the closing "Worthy is the Lamb", while showing bite in its jeering tone for the "crowd" scene, "He trusted in God".
Claire Booth was a sweetly expressive soprano, at her most luminous in the work's only passage of direct story-telling - the starry Christmas night scene of dazzling angels and wondering shepherds. Consistently intelligent in her interpretation, the mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill sounded less at ease in the white heat of "But who may abide the day of His coming?" than in her poignant "He was despised". Adding a welcome operatic colour to "Why do the nations so furiously rage together?", the bass Andrew Foster-Williams conveyed the musical grandeur of the score. The tenor James Gilchrist was expressive throughout, producing an eloquent and intimate response to music and words, and the sense of desolation he conveyed in "Thy rebuke hath broken His heart" was truly heartbreaking.
As for the "Hallelujah Chorus" and the contentious decision of whether to stand, as traditionalists and protocol demand, or to remain seated, the stand-up die-hards won, though I suspect that McGegan might back those who sat it out.
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