Prom 35 (1.09.21) - Sir John Eliot Gardiner

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Wednesday 1 September 2021 ON TV
Royal Albert Hall

George Frideric Handel: Donna, che in ciel
Johann Sebastian Bach: Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4
George Frideric Handel: Dixit Dominus

Ann Hallenberg mezzo-soprano
English Baroque Soloists
Monteverdi Choir
Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor

Sir John Eliot Gardiner makes his 60th Proms appearance directing his own Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in Handel’s vividly theatrical Dixit Dominus – a concerto for choir that blazes with virtuosity and colour. It’s paired with Bach’s Easter cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden – a fiery, dramatic setting of Luther’s popular hymn. Mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg is the soloist in the young Handel’s cantata of praise to the Virgin Mary, Donna, che in ciel, containing music the composer later borrowed for his opera Agrippina.

[jayne lee wilson]

One of Bach's greatest cantatas (a personal favourite), Handel at his dynamic and catchiest best....and with the performers I would choose to perform them.....

Part One, wonderful music-making in every respect, whether sung or played, solo or choral... so fastidious, precise and expressive...... lovely sound, both spacious and intimate, the distinctive EBS and Monteverdi characters vividly realised in my room....

*****
Immaculately conceived and so perfectly brought into our Musical Worlds, I can't imagine hearing a finer Dixit Dominus than that. Quite some achievement for the 22-year old Handel, written in Rome and probably intended to show off to all the right people his sublime, adventurous and brilliant mastery of the Italian Style.
No-one is sure what prompted its composition, or where it was first performed, but as the Notes to the SDG JEG recording say, Handel seems to be "daring his hosts to greater and greater feats of virtuosity"

The extraordinarily syllabic singing of "Conquassa" is quite something isn't it? As the SDG note continues:
".....he gives drastic, pictorial expression to the destruction alluded to in the text in the staccato reiterations of the word ‘con-quas-sa-a-a-a-bit’. Whether conscious
or not, this is a throwback to stile concitato invented a century before by Monteverdi for conveying excitement, anguish and martial vigour."

Another sublime evening in an unfeasibly bountiful season.....

[oddoneout]

Aren't we lucky that such music was written in the first place and that we can hear it so gloriously performed?

[richardfinegold]

Definitely a Handel "Greatest Hit" I have a JEG recording from eons ago. I will be trying to listen on my new streamer

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Aren't we lucky that such music was written in the first place and that we can hear it so gloriously performed?

[edashtav]

Yes, the Bach cantata was stunning in so many ways: great music, a professional choir so accomplished that every individual ‘bought into’ every nuance of interpretation with alacrity, precision and unity. Their diction was perfect. And what about that extended ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus? It was simply brilliant and made Handel’s barn-storming effort seem tame by comparison. A lovely Cantata sung, played and conducted awesomely well. Unforgettable.

I had doubts about the early Handel cantata which was as “Catholic” as Bach’s was “Protestant”, not that such matters worried me. I found it experimental, occasionally naïve, with a strange and unsatisfactory form. I was shocked when Handel added a chorus at the last hurdle. Baroque mezzos don’t come better equipped than Ann Hallenberg, do they? She demonstrated her great voice, her wonderful range, her depth of musicological knowledge and her virtuosity when decorating a line. However, I did detect occasional tiny issues over intonation, insufficient to mar her performance but enough to show that she was human and could err. These days record engineers bend such naughty notes back into line and a year without live performances has, possibly, made me too hypercritical of real-time errors.

I’m yet to catch up with Dixit Dominus but I’ve heard JEG and his forces perform it before, and know that they do a brilliant job!

[Keraulophone]

Aren't we lucky that such music was written in the first place and that we can hear it so gloriously performed?

Amazing virtuosity in the writing and performance of DD. JEG made it sound super-energetic.
And BWV 4 gloriously recalled from my early teens as an O-level set work.
A wondrous Prom.

.

[oddoneout]

Amazing virtuosity in the writing and performance of DD. JEG made it sound super-energetic.
And BWV 4 gloriously recalled from my early teens as an O-level set work.
A wondrous Prom.

.

The Bach was something I first came across as part of a choir Easter concert 20 years ago and fell in love with it, and I have the Richter/Fischer-Dieskau CD which gets aired every now and again. These days I find JEG's characteristic/idiosyncratic approach to Bach not always to my taste (micromanagement of dynamics and accents) but fortunately this performance, perhaps because it was live and in a concert hall, didn't tip over into irritation.
The DD was another choir concert item from about 10 years ago, something I would dearly love to sing again, and for this the JEG approach worked well I thought. I'm not a person to dance round the room but I do find it difficult to keep still when listening to this so just as well I had the sofa to myself! I also have a CD (KCC/Cleobury/Decca compilation) which gets aired, not least as it includes other Handel choral items,(not Messiah) I have sung over the years.
A concert that's very high on feel good factor for me, I'm still smiling thinking about it and better able today to face the greyness all around.

[jayne lee wilson]

"Greyness all around..."
You and me both at odds.... literally and metaphorically and IRL.... some blue sky visible today though... a beatific grace beyond the clouds.....

If you wish to follow up, JEG's later Dixit Dominus on SDG "Live at Milton Court" (2014, with applause) is playing now and really wonderful. Excellent sound too, though inevitably much more immediate than it was in last night's acoustic!
C/W Bach Cantata 199 & Scarlatti Stabat Mater.

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/handel-bach-scarlatti-live-at-milton-court-john-eliot-gardiner-monteverdi-choir/0843183050222

Unique one-off for sure but the Bach Cantata 4, framed by the Bach/Webern Ricercare (twice, before and after the Bach on the album with other Webern items, an effect you may or may not take to......) is on a remarkable ECM New Series release.....gorgeously done, with the Munich CO, Poppen and the Hilliards...

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/ricercar-the-hilliard-ensemble-munchener-kammerorchester-christoph-poppen/0002894619122

...CDs widely available....

[jonfan]

JEG has a reputation of a less than sunny relationship with his performers down the years; I often feel the composer is at the service of JEG.

[jayne lee wilson]

JEG has a reputation of a less than sunny relationship with his performers down the years; I often feel the composer is at the service of JEG.

Well...as with the Prom Performers, the LSO sound like triumphantly willing collaborators on their Schumann and Mendelssohn Cycles.... I'm obsessed with both composers and even with shelves full of both, these LSO Lives are among my very favourites for either.....

Don't know about relationships or rumours, but My God, you could suggest such a thing (and much better-evidenced) about so many conductors so....
How long has he been with the EBS, ORR, Monteverdi? Many decades.....

Their wonderful catalogues don't merely suggest, but demonstrate a truly wonderful musical partnership...those recent live accounts of - Bach & Handel, Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert..... all show again a rare mastery, and the notes to them offer personal accounts of his performers' devotion.

[jonfan]

'How long has he been with the EBS, ORR, Monteverdi? Many decades.....'
These are totally JEG's creations and as far as I'm aware no one else has conducted them.
Hopefully things are better now but give me Bach Collegium Japan and the Sixteen in this repertoire any day.

[jayne lee wilson]

'How long has he been with the EBS, ORR, Monteverdi? Many decades.....'
These are totally JEG's creations and as far as I'm aware no one else has conducted them.
Hopefully things are better now but give me Bach Collegium Japan and the Sixteen in this repertoire any day.

Point is, the many testimonies on the SDG Albums from the players about working with JEG...

But BCJ - big fan here too, if less consistently impressed by their various releases....and yes, a marked contrast with the JEG approach in similar rep....this is also to do with their very sound of course, given their usual shining radiant-halo acoustics...

And yet, and yet..... the later JEG Bach B Minor Mass is decidedly warmer & more yieldingly expressive...

[Braunschlag]

JEG has a reputation of a less than sunny relationship with his performers down the years; I often feel the composer is at the service of JEG.

Me too - I’ve never warmed to any of his arid and soulless work. Local Oxfam has a set of his complete Bach Cantatas, remaindered on the shelf for at least the last 6 weeks.

[Frances_iom]

.... Local Oxfam has a set of his complete Bach Cantatas, remaindered on the shelf for at least the last 6 weeks.

knowing Oxfam's pricing policy that is almost certainly because they are expecting near original selling price - most of their 2nd hand CDs are significantly overpriced.