Last night Bernard Labadie concluded his visit to the San Francisco Symphony, complementing last week's offering of seldom-heard compositions by Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
with an evening devoted to George Frideric Handel at his most
celebratory. The object of that celebration was George II on two
occasions: his coronation an October 11, 1727 and his leading of
English troops to victory at the Battle of Dettingen on June 27, 1743.
Handel composed four anthems for the coronation, three of which were
performed in the first half of last night's program by the San Francisco
Symphony and Chorus, "Zadok the Priest" (HWV 258), "My Heart is
Inditing" (261), and "The King Shall Rejoice" (HWV 260). In place of
the fourth (HWV 259) anthem ("Let thy Hand be Strengthened"), organist
Richard Paré joined the symphony for a performance of Handel's Opus 4,
Number 1 (HWV 289) organ concerto in G minor.
At my last encounter with HWV 258 at the beginning of this month, I observed that this was all incidental
music but that, where Handel was concerned, even his music subordinated
to a specific occasion still deserves serious listening. Labadie's
respect for serious listening, so evident in his nuanced interpretations
of Haydn and Mozart last week, again presented itself in full force
with a new set of resources, the full mixed chorus and the pipe organ as
concerto instrument. Once again that respect was displayed through his
command of dynamic control and pace.
When
an occasion is celebratory, the danger is that all the performers burst
forth at full force and then desperately try to maintain that level of
energy for the duration of the composition. Handel clearly wanted none
of such nonsense; and this is clear from the very opening of HWV 258,
which may be the longest sustained crescendo in the literature until
Richard Wagner came along with the Vorspiel to his opera Das Rheingold.
As Labadie conducted it, this was not a simple matter of getting louder
over a long duration; rather, it involved a gradual succession of
"crescendo waves," each one slightly strong than its predecessor, until,
as the orchestra reaches its peak, the chorus bursts forth with the
text describing the coronation of Solomon. As I have previously observed,
that burst runs the risk of drowning out the orchestra; but Labadie
kept his resources under control to make sure that no individual element
of this glorious moment was lost.
The problem of balance is
probably even more critical in a concerto for organ and orchestra,
particularly since most of the organs of Handel's time lacked swell
boxes. Loudness was simply a matter of how many ranks of pipes were
connected to the keyboard (i.e., not "stopped"). The organ used for
this concerto was, therefore, a much smaller instrument than the Davies
pipe organ recently put on display for the organ concerto of Francis Poulenc.
This smaller instrument could support far more dexterity, and this is
precisely what Handel wanted. That same skill in virtuoso turns that we
know so well in his operas
is on display at a keyboard here; and, with the more modest resources
of the instrument, the ear can easily follow every intricate twist of
that virtuosity. The result is a display of melodic invention that is
right up there with the violin writing of Baroque masters such as Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Paré mustered all of the agility that Handel demanded, always choosing
his stops for the most suitable blend with the Symphony under Labadie's
control. Handel-the-organist may have an entirely different character
from that of Bach-the-organist; but that character offers a bright
contrast to the more meditative Bach. Labadie and Paré captured all of
that brightness, offering the best possible complement to the
celebratory anthems.
The celebration of the "Dettingen Te Deum"
(HWV 283), on the other hand, is more military in nature, replete with
all the martial sounds of brass and percussion. Nevertheless, the work
also has its reflective moments, the most outstanding of which is a trio
("Thou sittest at the right hand of God") for countertenor (Matthew
White), tenor (Frédéric Antoun), and baritone (Joshua Hopkins) solo
voices. I cannot recall any previous encounter with this particular
blend of male voices; and the close harmonies that Handel conceived for
them stand out in sharp contrast to most of the other vocal writing,
which comes close to our usual expectations. Perhaps this was Handel's
pause in the celebratory spirit to reflect on the Trinity; or it may be
that he just felt that all of his soloists deserved to come together
for a "star turn." Whatever the case may be, we were reminded that
Handel always had the ability to surprise, and Labadie knew how to set
the context to make the surprise a good one.
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