Director: John Butt
The second concert at St. Peter’s Church, Norton, on July 29th was titled, rather mysteriously, A Garden of Good and Evil – possibly part of some longer term project from Philharmonia Baroque of San Francisco. But the title is irrelevant: a rather oddly designed programme worked extremely well.
At the centre was a commission to Errollyn Wallen and Tarik O’Regan for pieces which summoned up our common ancestors. These were performed, one each side of the interval, by countertenor Tim Mead and the Philharmonia Baroque, directed – rather extravagantly – from the keyboard by John Butt, replacing the scheduled Richard Egarr.
In each half Tim Mead sang two Handelian arias, characterised as Heroic, Hideous, Sacred and Secular, the orchestra added a concerto grosso by Handel and kicked the whole thing off with the overture to Orlando. Mead’s emotional colouring of the arias provided plenty of contrast and the two commissions, to short texts written by the other composer, had a powerful impact.
Wallen’s piece was all motion, full of variety, even containing a brief spoken section, fully exploiting Mead’s gift for heroic declamation – and the little solo spots for theorbo were a delight for lovers of that instrument. O’Regan’s piece, more static, exploited the full range of Mead’s voice and built a powerful tension between the spare vocal lines and busy orchestral fills.
Elsewhere, if the aim was to show the contrasts in Handel’s music, it certainly succeeded. Perhaps one of the reasons for his overwhelming popularity in 18th century London was his ability to appeal to all tastes. For instance, both opus 6 concerto grossos move from a profound opening to an exhilarating fugue for the second movement and, in the case of Number 7, finish off with – of all things – a hornpipe!
Another reason was his outstanding productivity helped by his willingness to borrow from himself as, for instance, the “sacred” aria from Judas Maccabeus with its echoes of Where’er you walk from Semele – not so sacred, being sung by a pagan god. Mead sang splendidly throughout, from the ringing top notes of the “heroic” aria from Giulio Cesare onwards, but he (and the orchestra) saved the best till last – another aria from Giulio Cesare, this time a delicious conversation with a bird in a garden. The leader’s violin provided the voice of the bird and we all left smiling.
Reviewed on 29th July 2022.
