A glorious performance

Handel's Messiah

Oldham Choral Society at the Royal Northern College of Music

OVER recent years there has been a back-to-basics reassessment of the performance techniques of much Baroque music and Handel's Messiah has been stripped back to its essentials.

Sunday's performance by the Oldham Choral Society and the East Lancs Sinfonia at the Royal College of Music was a superb example of how to recreate the light and airy (even jolly) nature of Handel's first conceptions of this masterpiece.

A great deal of thought and hard work had gone into the selection of pieces to be included, the voices in which they were sung and the reduction of the Sinfonia to strings - including harpsichord.

Indeed when the solo trumpet did sound it was like a bolt of lightning from the heaven that Handel imagined when he concluded his Hallelujah Chorus.

So taken with this presentation were the audience that they found it hard to refrain from starting to applaud a few times between sections, and the thunderous applause after the final Amen proved that all the hard work was worth while.

Fronting the clear, precise singing of the choir were four excellent soloists: Natasha Jouhl, Soprano, Louise Winter, Mezzo Soprano, Amar Muchhala, Tenor and Henry Waddington, Bass. All sang with gusto and emotion.

All of the night's experience was under the baton of Nigel P. Wilkinson. Nigel leads the Choral Society and the Sinfonia.

His vision of a Messiah restored to how it might have been heard 250 years ago took a lot of time, effort, research and dedication and every minute of his work of love was worth while.

The society's next performance is The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins on Remembrance Sunday, followed by Dream of Gerontius by Elgar in 2018.

SF