Messiah, English Chamber Orchestra Leeds Festival Chorus, Leeds Town Hall, Saturday 14th December 2019

THIS evening’s venerable choir has built an illustrious tradition of performing Messiah in Leeds Town Hall. In Georgian Leeds, the 400 capacity Kirkgate Assembly Room which is currently undergoing restoration, and from 1793 the 800 capacity Albion Street Music Hall both hosted Messiah. These performances were broadly similar in scale to the 1742 Dublin premiere of Handel’s beloved oratorio.

The Town Hall’s opening in October 1858 ushered in an era of mammoth renditions, usually taken at ponderous speeds. A newly formed Festival Chorus and a stellar line-up of soloists performed Messiah as the climax to that month’s inaugural Leeds Triennial Musical Festival. Critics reviewing this auspicious event conveyed the Impression that 300 lusty West Riding voices swamped both the huge orchestra, and the organ.

Given the opportunity, Victorian audiences may well have enjoyed the dynamic shading and rhythmic bounce of today’s Festival Chorus. Last Saturday evening, conductor Simon Wright’s broad spectrum of colours and dynamics achieved a near perfect balance of vocal and orchestral textures, harpsichord and chamber organ continuo. His responsive Choir of 130 voices produced a lovely pianissimo entry as effortlessly as an exultant blaze of light. The textural variety of the great choruses was complemented by the tonal purity of recitatives and arias delivered by four splendid soloists. Carolyn Sampson’s exquisitely wrought soprano line matched the radiant lyricism of tenor Robin Tritschler and the rich sonorities of bass Roderick Williams. Williams wonderfully infused his lines with mystery and awe. Tritschler and the leaner timbre of counter tenor Robin Blaze were finely balanced in the duet O Death, Where is Thy Sting?

The English Chamber Orchestra’s superlative playing of Handel was largely nurtured by eminent conductors Charles Mackerras and Raymond Leppard. It remains the epitome of style, despite intense competition from austere sounding period instrument ensembles.

A capacity audience responded with palpable warmth and enthusiasm to this quite exceptional performance.

Geoffrey Mogridge