Handel's Messiah

Early Music Vancouver presented, incredibly, for the first time Handel’s perennially popular Messiah this weekend. I attended one of four performances of the oratorio, and found the performance both musically satisfying and spiritually uplifting.

For their presentation, EMV had assembled a strong cast consisting of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Vancouver Cantata Singers (under Paula Kremer), soprano Yulia Van Doren, Mezzo-Soprano Krisztina Szabó, Tenor Charles Daniels, and Vancouver’s own Baritone Tyler Duncan, under the direction of Alexander Weimann, who also played the harpsichord.

All four soloists for the performance are outstanding artists. Vocally Van Doren was the strongest of the four, and her singing of many of the florid vocal lines had an effortless quality as well as a palpable feeling of joyfulness.  This was particularly evident in her exhilarating performance of the aria, “Rejoice greatly”. As well, her performance of “I know that my Redeemer liveth” had a simplicity of feeling and a naturalness in delivery. Also memorable was Szabó’s deeply felt singing of the alto aria, “He was despised and rejected”.

To my ears, the soloists all meant what they were singing. Tenor Daniels, in particular, made every word he sang charged with meaning. I felt this especially in the many accompanied recitatives, recitatives, arioso (“Behold, and see if there be any sorrow”) in Part II of the oratorio. In “Why do the nations so furiously rage together”, Duncan delivered the aria with incredible power and dizzying vocal prowess as well as a palpable sense of urgency, and I could not help but feel that the words of the aria are particularly apt for our times.

Kudos to Paula Kremer and the Vancouver Cantata Singers for their always beautifully nuanced, textually clear, and always musical singing really made them one of the evening’s highlights. In some of the choruses, Alexander Weimann set tempi for the singers that are challenging to sing. The choir more than rose to the occasion in the dizzying speed, agility, accuracy, and lightness of their singing. In choruses such as “For unto us a child is born” and “All we like sheep”, there was an incredible feeling of excitement and exhilaration.  In “Surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”, the choristers infused the music and the words with an incredible intensity of feeling.

The Pacific Baroque Orchestra has been a cornerstone of Vancouver’s early music scene. Concertmaster Chloe Meyers played with great confidence and beautiful articulation. I particularly enjoyed her playing of the striking violin figures in “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron”.

It was quite a sight to watch conductor and harpsichordist Alexander Weimann in action, sometimes standing or half sitting while playing, keeping all of the performing forces together. The ensemble was impeccable, the coordination between orchestra and singers was always at one with each other, and it was a reading that was intensely beautiful and musical. In the final “Amen”, Handel’s genius and the talent and hard work of the musicians all came together to conclude this incredible evening with a final benediction. For me, it was a performance that very much moved.

It is probably safe to say that we live in a post-Christian age. Yet, year after year, people flock to performances of Handel’s Messiah, and recordings of the oratorio continue to be made and are sold. On top of the emotional association every December of doing “something Christmassy” – and Handel’s Messiah certainly beats another performance of Nutcracker - could it be that we, even when we want to deny it, are in search of something transcendent? Surely when we hear those beautiful and inspired (by the Holy Spirit no less) words being sung, we could not help but be moved?  In the words of Saint Augustine, all of us are “wired” for God, and nothing in our world would ever be able to finally satisfy us  - “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee”.

Perhaps we are, all of us, no matter how much we protest otherwise, in search of an “invasion of grace” into our lives.

Patrick May

December 4, 2017

Revisiting a Tradition

What is it about George Frideric Handel’s Messiah that the Advent season seems incomplete without it? More than any other musical works, Handel’s Messiah has become synonymous with the Christmas season. And so, every December choirs and orchestras, professional and semi-professional, put on performances of this enduring masterpiece. Whatever the quality of the singing or playing, every performance of Handel’s Messiah is sure to bring in the crowds. In Vancouver, the three major choirs usually take turns performing the work in consecutive years.

This year, I elected to attend the Messiah performance given by the performing forces of the University of British Columbia’s School of Music, comprising of the University Singers, and Choral Union, and the UBC Symphony Orchestra.  Soloists for the Oratorio were drawn from the voice department of the school – wonderful opportunities for the young singers of the school.

Although not using any period instruments, the performance was a strong and authentic one. The two choirs acquitted themselves admirably, especially in the many fast melismatic passages, where they carried off with lightness and with panache. It was a nice touch to include counter-tenor Shane Hansen in Part Three’s recitative (“Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written; Death is swallow’d up in victory.”) and duet (“O Death, where is thy sting?”). The soloists gave credible performances of their various recitatives and arias, the highlight being soprano Stephanie Nakagawa’s performance. Of all the soloists, I felt that she had the most mature voice and musicianship. Moreover, I got the feeling that she meant the words that she sang.

Far worthier and more knowledgeable writers have already written about the greatness of Handel’s Messiah. For me, what was most moving was to see the young singers in the two choirs, who must all be, at this time of year, overwhelmed by assignments and exams, taking time out for the many rehearsals and the performance. Many of the singers, especially in the Choral Union, are not even Music majors. Yet they were there, students of every background and ethnicity, singing with conviction those words in praise of the glory of God and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. It does not matter what one’s religious convictions are, Handel’s Messiah is not just a piece of music where beautiful words are set to beautiful music, but part of a tradition in our human culture, our civilization, our very being. This, I believe, is something that we must never take for granted. To erase that would be to erase part of the history of humanity.

We live in what some have termed a “post-Christian society”, in a time when Christianity is gradually being pushed to the margins of society, where one’s Christian faith is not something to be brought up at dinner parties, at risk of opening up oneself to ridicule. Judging from the reaction of the very enthusiastic audience, I can only conclude that these words from the Bible still resonate within us, consciously or subconsciously, whether we choose to admit it or not. It gives me hope to hear this music being performed in the very secular environment of a university.

But that evening, we live in a world where music was just what it is, something that transcends our existence, and connects us with the past.

Handel's Messiah

What is it about Handel’s Messiah that continues to move and thrill us year after year? George Frideric Handel wrote many oratorios in addition to the Messiah, and many of them are often performed. But perhaps no other works of the composer, none of his operas and oratorios, popular as they are in their own right, have achieved the universal appeal of this one single work. Every Christmas, we will find presentations of Handel’s Messiah in many different countries all over the world, performed by ensembles making up of the world’s greatest singers and orchestras to church choirs with piano accompaniment. Years ago, a recording of Handel’s oratorio came out of communist China, an officially atheistic country that continues to persecute Christians, especially Catholics, sung in Mandarin!

In Vancouver, the annual performance of Handel’s Messiah is usually done by one of three major choirs in the city. This year the honour went to the Vancouver Chamber Choir, a professional choir making up of trained and experienced singers, augmented by the Pacifica Singers, and conducted by Jon Washburn. The four soloists - Yulia Van Doren, Laura Pudwell, Colin Balzer and Tyler Duncan – did an outstanding job with the various recitatives and arias. I particular enjoyed the timbre of the two male voices and what they did with their respective solos. Soprano Yulia Van Doren has an extremely beautiful voice, but I feel that the clarity of her diction suffers a bit at the expense of this beautiful sound. All the soloists exuded palpable pleasure in what they did.

As much as the arias and recitatives were beautiful in the Messiah, the various choruses are for me the crown jewels of the work. The two choirs did a magnificent job Saturday evening, singing the music with lightness, agility, and much joy. Jon Washburn did a credible job in keeping all the performing forces together; I do, however, miss the energy that Bernard Labadie brought to the work in a previous performance, as well as his pacing of the music.

Why do audiences continue to flock to performances of Handel’s Messiah?

In attempting to become inclusive, our city, in fact, the western world, thought that one must erase one’s own traditions and customs and beliefs to make room for “the others”. Christianity is being rejected for a wide range of “reasons” by those who come from or brought up in such a tradition. The trend, at least for the last decade, has been to reject anything that has to do with one’s parents, one’s parents’ generation, European-centred or European-originated. This whole discussion of Diversity and Inclusiveness has been taken to mean rejecting out of hand anything western, rather than becoming INclusive – to include one’s own roots and traditions, including religion if religion is part of one’s makeup, while exploring, respecting, and understanding others’ cultures, beliefs, traditions, languages, and religions.

We therefore live in a time when Christianity has been increasingly marginalized from our consciousness as well as from the public square. When I witness the continued popularity of the Messiah, I can only assume, or hope, that there exists within all of us a yearning for the message contained within this magnificent work of art, brought alive by the genius of George Frideric Handel.