Boston Baroque exalts Handel’s ‘Messiah’
Boston has been a two-“Messiah” city for some time now, and there’s the temptation to think of Boston Baroque’s as the other one in town. The Handel and Haydn Society, after all, gave America’s first ever complete “Messiah,” back in
1818, and last weekend’s presentation of Handel’s 1742 oratorio marked the 169th consecutive year that H+H has done it. Boston Baroque didn’t even come into existence till 1973. H+H also enjoys the bigger audience: three performances in capacious Symphony Hall each year versus Boston Baroque’s current pair in WGBH’s Calderwood Studio and New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall.
Still, it was Boston Baroque that, in 1981, gave the first Boston period-instrument performances of the complete oratorio; H+H didn’t become a period-instrument ensemble till
1986. And you could argue that Symphony Hall is not ideal for the modern, pared-down “Messiah” that both H+H and Boston Baroque now present. This year, Boston Baroque music director Martin Pearlman had an orchestra of 25 and a chorus of 24. The fractionally larger H+H complement can get swallowed up in Symphony Hall; on Sunday afternoon, Jordan Hall seemed just right.
That was particularly true for the vocal soloists. Tenor Thomas Cooley was first up, score in hand but looking at us as he sang “Comfort ye” as a lullaby, made a warm whisper of “Jerusalem,” became a huge “voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,” and exulted in “Ev’ry valley shall be exalted.” When, just before the “Hallelujah” chorus, he sang “thou shalt dash them in pieces,” he left no doubt they would stay dashed.
Heidi Stober was an animated soprano, turning quickly to this section of the audience and then that. Her nightingale trills brightened “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,” and she was clarion in “How beautiful are the feet,” with moments of piercing sunshine. Baritone Sidney Outlaw seemed more like a bass, cavernous in “The people that walked in darkness” before swelling into “have seen a great light,” gruff and prophetic in “Why do the nations.” Twice he simply closed his score and held it by his side. Mezzo-soprano Ann McMahon Quintero was earnest and more traditionally formal in “He was despised and rejected of men,” a little subdued in the lower register, but heartfelt in “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
In his program notes, Pearlman contrasts the “relatively heavy, reverential style” of 19thcentury “Messiah” performances with Boston Baroque’s “more detailed, articulate style and quicker tempos based on Baroque dance rhythms and speech patterns.” Sunday that meant aggressively dotted dance rhythms and aggressively articulated speech patterns. The rhythms were occasionally too pointed; in the “Pifa” Pearlman’s nervous energy didn’t quite square with the pastoral lilt of Handel’s siciliana. And the chorus’s “For unto us a child is born” was so detailed, it verged on choppy, with a brusquely clipped “Prince of Peace.”
Overall, though, choral enunciation was exemplary, especially in “And the glory of the Lord.” “And He shall purify” had a nippy energy; “His yoke is easy” tripped lightly; “Let us break their bonds asunder” spoke with a crisp staccato; “The Lord gave the word” became an exuberant march. A dramatic “Surely He hath borne our griefs” was followed by an “And with His stripes” whose reserve was calculated to set up the kinetic energy of “All we like sheep.”
Audiences traditionally stand for the “Hallelujah” chorus. “These performances are for your pleasure,” a program sidebar advised us, “and we would encourage you to sit or stand as you wish.” In my experience, however, the person in front of you invariably stands, so you have no choice. That was the case Sunday. The “Hallelujah” itself didn’t really explode, despite strong timpani from Jonathan Hess. My impression is that Pearlman used to take it a bit quicker, if not as fast as Marc Minkowski’s three-minute dash. Perhaps a sensible modern tempo is now so familiar it no longer seems revolutionary.
A scattering of audience members headed out afterward, with the performance approaching the 2½-hour mark. They missed some of the best moments of the afternoon. Stober elevated “I know that my Redeemer liveth” with precise diction and attention to meaning, holding back until “But now is Christ risen.” Outlaw’s simple, direct “Behold, I tell you a mystery” created suspense; “The trumpet shall sound” delivered, deep and authoritative, in duet with Justin Bland’s gleaming, dancing trumpet. The audience broke into sustained applause; Outlaw got a handshake from Pearlman and then fist-bumped with Bland. That was a hard act for Quintero and Cooley to follow, but they played off each other in an intimate “O death, where is thy sting?” And the concluding “Worthy is the Lamb” and “Amen” seemed to rise to Heaven.