Harry Bicket and the English Concert have recently embarked on an extraordinary and ambitious project entitled Handel for All, the aim of which is to eventually make their own filmed performances of the composer’s entire output available free online. This Barbican concert essentially recreated an afternoon in May 1749, when Handel gave a benefit performance of his own works in aid of the Foundling Hospital in London. The programme, then as now, consisted of the Music for the Royal Fireworks, extracts from Solomon, and the Foundling Hospital Anthem, newly composed for the occasion, though much of it actually recycled existing material, including the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah.
Bicket is a wonderful Handelian and the performances were exemplary in their grace, enthusiasm and elan. Beautifully played, the Fireworks Music swung exuberantly between ceremonial grandeur and elegant refinement. Despite evidence of hasty composition, the Foundling Hospital Anthem contains fine things. Relocated to the context of the sober advocacy of social and religious responsibility in the face of poverty, the Hallelujah Chorus comes over as measured rather than exultant, and the emotional climax falls earlier with the deeply felt chorus Comfort Them O Lord When They Are Sick, and a glorious duet for two sopranos The People Will Tell of Their Wisdom: Miah Persson and Elena Villalón sounded ravishing together here. The New York-based Clarion Choir sang with exacting precision and admirable fervour.
The Solomon extracts, however, aroused mixed feelings. It’s a great score, and hearing chunks of it leaves you hankering after the rest. And the choice of extracts gave Ann Hallenberg’s finely sung Solomon far too little – not even an aria – with which to establish either the King’s authority or his complexity of character. In the famous Judgment scene, though, Persson was deeply touching as the First Harlot opposite Niamh O’Sullivan, bristling with unrighteous indignation as the Second. Later on, Villalón made a sensuous Queen of Sheba. Brandon Cedel was the handsome sounding Levite, James Way the refined Zadok. Too few of the choruses remained, sadly, though the Clarion Choir once again sounded magnificent.
