Page 67 - BBC Music (January 2020)
P. 67
Recording of the Month Reviews
An interview with
CHOICE John Butt
Why did you choose to enlarge
the choir for this recording?
I’m trying to show the range of
what 18th-century choruses
could have been. In the case
of Samson there’s reasonably
strong evidence that Handel
didn’t have access to the
large cathedral choirs he
would normally have had for
his oratorios. The single voice
chorus was, perhaps, perfectly
adequate for his interests, but
I think he possibly found the
spectacle of a massed chorus
preferable in terms of giving an
extra magnificence. We actually
recorded both chorus sizes; the
‘smaller’ version is available as a
digital download.
Brilliantly Handel’d:
John Butt has a deep Why was Samson so pivotal?
grasp of this music I think Handel probably saw
it as a challenge, if not a risk,
in terms of setting a very long
libretto that had virtually no
The score is baggy, the time Micah, Jess Dandy gives despairing, the ensemble’s action. He was of course a very
pressure under which it was constant succour, soothing kaleidoscopic character and experienced dramatic composer,
prepared having led Handel Samson’s hot curses with colours make this ‘closet but here one has to think of the
to borrow from no fewer mellifluous responses. Sisters drama’ – that is, a theatre drama as taking place within
than eight other composers. Sophie and Mary Bevan make imagined rather than enacted the minds of the characters and,
therefore, within the minds of the
Butt’s deep grasp both of a rare joint appearance: on – riveting. The choir declaims
listeners. It’s striking how popular
Handel’s rhetoric and of hearing Sophie as Dalila, we as if one person, caressing or
the piece actually was; it must
large-scale structure turns the expectorating words in perfect have keyed into an aspect of
work’s patchwork quality into These choral forces euphony, even in imitative meditative thought in the 18th
a virtue, bringing intimacy to passages. Ratcheting up the century that was becoming more
each character’s reflections and make for a vibrancy tension, the band jostles to widespread, this idea of the
urgency to crowd reactions. unique among compete wherever the score personal drama.
Soloists and band have the recordings of Samson allows. This recording leaves Was the use of Milton’s poem
space for extended silences, in no doubt why Samson sealed part of its success?
super-soft pianissimos and can forgive Samson for yielding Handel’s reputation for oratorio, I imagine the Milton text was
leisurely pulses, which give to such lush lyricism, and the and why he never looked back. pretty well known and Newburgh
terrific tension to the moments sprightliness of Mary’s voice PERFORMANCE HHHHH Hamilton’s adaptation of it is
they carry. As Samson, Joshua give us ears to hear the lessons RECORDING HHHHH quite brilliant. Apart from biblical
Ellicott is wonderful from his which her various walk-on text there’s really nothing like it in
Handel. L’Allegro is of course also
first air, ‘Total Eclipse’, which characters deliver. Milton, but that’s less of a drama
he infuses with a whispered The choir’s performance is as such, although really up there
ANDREW MCCOY despair, to the swelling nobility this production’s crowning with the top of the Handel canon.
of his last, ‘Thus when the sun’.
glory. Alternately sublime
It’s difficult to find anything
As Samson’s male confidante
and mocking, haughty and
better than Samson.
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 69
