George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)/Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Israel in Ägypten (1739; version for Düsseldorf,
1833, reconstructed by Robert King) [82.03]
Lydia Teuscher (soprano); Julia Doyle (soprano); Hilary Summers (alto); Benjamin
Hulett (tenor); Roderick Williams (bass)
The Choir of the King’s Consort; The King’s Consort/Robert King
rec. 26-30 October 2015, St Jude’s Church, London NW11. DDD
VIVAT 111 [42:47 + 39:36]
In his championing of the revival of the music of his Baroque
predecessors Bach and Handel, Mendelssohn has a credible claim to being regarded
as the first HIP practitioner. For a good potted history of Mendelssohn’s
lifelong involvement with presenting Israel in Ägypten, I refer readers
to the review
by my MusicWeb colleague Robert Hugill. It dates back to 2009 and it seems
to have been a rather disappointing recording of a reconstruction of Mendelssohn's
performance of Handel’s oratorio at the Rhine Music Festival on 26 May
1833. This new reconstruction by Robert King of the performance at the Düsseldorf
Music Festival on 28 May 1833, evidently enjoys rather higher artistic standards
and considerably larger forces than that previous recording, even if, with
an orchestra of 46 and a choir of 36, they hardly approach in number Mendelssohn’s
275 singers and 134 orchestral players. In further pursuit of authenticity,
this recording uses early Romantic period instruments and a pitch of 430 Hz.
For later performances, Mendelssohn employed an organ as additional accompaniment,
whereas this recording replicates – sometimes using informed guesswork
- his supplementing of Handel’s instrumentation with extra scoring for
a double bass, a trumpet, a trombone, and two each of solo cellos, clarinets,
flutes and horns. He also restored passages he had discovered while perusing
Handel’s manuscript and an old libretto in London.
Apart from the obvious fact that the work is sung in German, other major changes
from Handel’s original concept include the addition of the “Trumpet
Overture”, adapted from a splendid piece composed by Mendelssohn when
he was seventeen. It offers an apt and felicitous combination of baroque pomp
and the melodious fleetness typical of the later composer. Another big difference
is the omission of “The Lamentations for the Death of Joseph”,
which originally formed the first part of the oratorio and in typically resourceful
Handelian style had been adapted from the “Funeral Anthem for Queen
Caroline”. Previous recordings in English, such as that by Harry Christophers
and The Sixteen, have kept that introduction and supplemented the whole with
organ concertos, but Handel himself cut the work when it became apparent,
after its first performance, that it was not going to please, being, in his
words, “too solemn for common ears” with its preponderance of
choruses and lack of operatic-style arias.
Mendelssohn, too, found it necessary to make cuts and reduce the scope of
his ambition to accommodate the partially amateur status of his performers.
I think it a pity that he re-allocated the famous “Frogs” aria
from alto to bass, as its macabre humour hardly makes the same impact in that
tessitura, albeit well sung here by Roderick Williams. However, the wit and
invention of Handel’s depiction of the plague of flies, pounding hail-storm
and the imposition of suffocating darkness upon Egypt emerge vividly here,
especially in their supplemented arrangements by Mendelssohn.
The vocal soloists’ contribution here is not as important as is usually
the case in Handel’s oratorios but they are all excellent, especially
Benjamin Hulett’s clear, bright tenor. The choral and orchestral playing
is of the high standard you would expect from this provenance and overall
the whole enterprise must be accounted a great success, appealing not just
to musicologists but to anyone with a taste for both composers.
Ralph Moore
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