Elgar Oratorios Hallé /Elder

[Ein Heldenleben]

It strikes me that the performance of all three starting with The Apostles by the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder is a significant event. A recording is being broadcast right now. I see the reviews have been outstanding so I am highlighting it.

[Nick Armstrong]

It strikes me that the performance of all three starting with The Apostles by the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder is a significant event. A recording is being broadcast right now. I see the reviews have been outstanding so I am highlighting it.

Listening now. The London Philharmonic Choir bussed 50 members up to swell the Hallé numbers, including an old friend who tipped me off about the quality of the performance.

[Simon B]

All three were very much in the vein of previous performances in Manchester and at the Proms by these forces during Mark Elder's long tenure. In the case of the Apostles and Kingdom, you're most unlikely to hear better. I exclude Gerontius mainly because it is so much more often performed that there is more opportunity.

As far as I recall, microphones were only present for The Apostles. Attending all of them, I was once again struck by the feeling that it is in many ways the most interesting of the three in terms of orchestration and sonic splendour. Elder consistently extracts maximum value from all the moments of colourful instrumentation and monumental drama so as to place it further from any sense of dusty English oratorio than most other interpreters. As an acquaintance at the concert noted, bits of what we'd heard wouldn't be out of place as a soundtrack to a Cecil B. deMille type epic...

[smittims]

Yes, the Apostles is the more dramatic of the two , and the nearest Elgar came to his ideal of merging Wagnerian music-drama with the English oratorio tradition. There's (on tape somewhere hopefully) a 1964 Sargent performance from Liverpool with Owen Brannigan as a magnificently vivid Judas.But like Sir Adrian Boult and others, I've come over the years to prefer The Kingdom, as I find it more symphonically-proportioned.

These works are difficult to conduct satisfactorily because of their complexity, and Mark Elder has done them good service over the years. I remembr especially Alice Coote's moving Mary Magdalene.

[jonfan]

There's (on tape somewhere hopefully) a 1964 Sargent performance from Liverpool with Owen Brannigan as a magnificently vivid Judas.

The performance was on 18 March 1967 in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. The Elgar Society have an off air recording. The Secretary of the Huddersfield Choral Society was given the mastertapes by the BBC and the Choral is in the process of raising funds to have Pristine Classical work on them for release on CD. I've heard the last part of Part Two and it sounds magnificent.

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?q=the+Apostles+Elgar+Sargent#top

It was broadcast after Sargent's death and as the above link shows a treasurer's nightmare with 6 top class soloists.

[smittims]

Thanks, jonfan. I often get the wrong year whe remembering!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thanks, jonfan. I often get the wrong year whe remembering!

In later autumn 2022, there was an invitation for people to apply to become Associate Members of the Hallé Choir, in order to boost their numbers for The Kingdom. I applied, but bodged the audition. I had no complaints about this, as I messed up badly, and wouldn’t have let myself into the choir. However, I made sure of attending the performance (which was overwhelming). I’ve been to every Hallé performance of the work in Manchester since 1967.

[Cockney Sparrow]

I went to the performance of The Kingdom - I am very appreciative of the Elgar Oratorios, and the Kingdom above them all. I thought Andrew Staples gave a very fine performance, a late replacement for an indisposed Thomas Atkins. A very acceptable performance generally.

It may have been the position of my seat, but I did question whether the chorus needed to be quite so large - I thought, once or twice, the sound approached overload.

(I joined two choirs I still sing with today - the catalyst being to sing The Apostles and The Kingdom, works not often enough performed) .

[smittims]

1967 jonfan? That would be Maurice Handford, I think; that most underrated of conductors, in my opinion. I used to have a tape of that performance.

How nice to find there really is a Thomas Atkins! I used to know a man who was really called Wyatt Earp. Unlike his namesake he toted a flute rather than a six-shooter.

[Once Was 4]

1967 jonfan? That would be Maurice Handford, I think; that most underrated of conductors, in my opinion. I used to have a tape of that performance.

How nice to find there really is a Thomas Atkins! I used to know a man who was really called Wyatt Earp. Unlike his namesake he toted a flute rather than a six-shooter.

Was the 1967 performance of The Apostles conducted by Maurice Handford actually with the Halle?

I ask because there was one that year in the Manchester Free Trade Hall and conducted by Maurice. But the orchestra and choir were students and staff of the Northern School of Music (before it was amalgamated with the Royal Manchester College to form the current Royal Northern College of Music). The orchestra was led by the great Maurice Clare. I was playing the 4th horn part and still have a copy of the programme in my collection if anybody would like details of the soloists etc.

Or were there two such performances that year? Or a Halle one in a subsequent year?

[jonfan]

Was the 1967 performance of The Apostles conducted by Maurice Handford actually with the Halle?

I ask because there was one that year in the Manchester Free Trade Hall and conducted by Maurice. But the orchestra and choir were students and staff of the Northern School of Music (before it was amalgamated with the Royal Manchester College to form the current Royal Northern College of Music). The orchestra was led by the great Maurice Clare. I was playing the 4th horn part and still have a copy of the programme in my collection if anybody would like details of the soloists etc.

Or were there two such performances that year? Or a Halle one in a subsequent year?

The 1967 Apostles in Liverpool was Sargent as noted in the Radio Times extract above. I’d just joined the tenor section of the Huddersfield Choral but was unable to sing in the performance as I hadn’t attended enough rehearsals. The choir numbered about 280 then and being part of that felt as though you were carried safely along on a journey while luxuriating in a warm bath.

[smittims]

It was The Kingdom which I heard Handford conduct in a broadcast around 1967 and it was definitely the Halle. A few days earlier the Sargent /Liverpool Apostles was broadcast. It was the first time I had heard either work, though I knew Gerontius from a copy of the Columbia recording given to me by an old friend. Maurice Handford did have a regular connection with the then Northern School of Music and the Wilmslow S.O. , the NSM choir taking part in his 1969 concert perfromances of Berlioz' Trojans .

[jonfan]

The performance was on 18 March 1967 in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. The Elgar Society have an off air recording. The Secretary of the Huddersfield Choral Society was given the mastertapes by the BBC and the Choral is in the process of raising funds to have Pristine Classical work on them for release on CD. I've heard the last part of Part Two and it sounds magnificent.

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?q=the+Apostles+Elgar+Sargent#top

It was broadcast after Sargent's death and as the above link shows a treasurer's nightmare with 6 top class soloists.

PS. If anyone woild like to hear a quick remastering of the last half hour of Part Two then send me a Private Message and I'll send by email the file via WeTransfer. This will give a flavour of the performance; it begins with the great Judas solo and continues to the end of the oratorio.