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Sir Edward ELGAR The
Apostles, Op. 49 [114:29]
Rebecca Evans (soprano) – The Angel Gabriel, The Blessed Virgin
Mary
Alice Coote (mezzo) – Mary Magdalene, Narrator 2
Paul Groves (tenor) – Narrator, John
Jacques Imbrailo (baritone) – Jesus
David Kempster (baritone) – Peter
Brindley Sherratt (bass) – Judas
Chorus of Apostles: Sean Boyes (tenor); Thomas Kelly (tenor); Timothy
Langston (tenor); Thomas Morss (tenor); Adam Player (tenor); Stefan
Berkiata (bass); Matthew Kellett (bass); Graham McCusker (bass);
Daniel Shelvey(bass)
Hallé Choir; Hallé Youth Choir; Hallé Orchestra/Sir Mark Elder
rec. live 5 May 2012 and in rehearsal, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
English text included
HALLÉ CD HLD 7534 [65:08 + 49:21]
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Following on from his magnificent recording of The Dream
of Gerontius (review)
Sir Mark Elder gave us an equally splendid live account of The
Kingdom in 2010 (review).
I hoped that the companion oratorio, The Apostles would
follow and now here it is. The recording has been issued very
quickly after the concert performance from which it’s taken
(review)
and although it seems a bit of editing was required, splicing
in passages from the rehearsal, I can’t say I was aware of any
obvious joins.
Commissioned for the 1903 Birmingham Festival, The Apostles
was intended by Elgar as part of a much more ambitious scheme
which would have stretched to three full-length oratorios had
it been completed. However, he only completed the second part,
The Kingdom – also for Birmingham, in 1906 – and thereafter,
for a variety of reasons, he lost interest – or heart – and
did no more than tinker with outline ideas for Part III. The
story of the ‘Apostles Trilogy’ is comprehensively
related in Michael Foster’s indispensable book, Plotting
Gigantic Worx. The Story of Elgar’s Apostles Trilogy (1995,
2003).
As Mr Foster observes, well before Elgar’s death interest had
cooled in both The Apostles and The Kingdom
although he conducted both pieces on a number of occasions at
Three Choirs Festivals. The Kingdom was not recorded
until 1968 when Sir Adrian Boult chose it for a recording to
mark his 80th birthday. The Apostles had to wait even
longer; Sir Adrian was able to record it in 1973. Since then
both oratorios have also been recorded by Richard Hickox and
both his and Sir Adrian’s accounts of The Apostles
remain in the catalogue. The Hickox recording is available separately
(CHAN 8875/6) but currently you can only get the Boult recording
within boxed sets from EMI, I think. There were also recordings
of both works by Leonard Slatkin some time ago but I have never
heard them and as far as I know neither is currently available.
One other recording of The Apostles exists in the shape
of a performance, possibly live, by the Canterbury Choral Society
conducted by Richard Cooke (Quartz QTZ2017) though that has
never come my way.
One thing which may have militated against The Apostles,
besides its length, is the size of the forces required. Elgar’s
orchestral scoring is lavish – one of the largest orchestras
for which he ever wrote – and the piece also requires no less
than six soloists. In this performance Sir Mark Elder has gone
even further, using nine male singers to form a Chorus of Apostles.
In his excellent booklet note Michael Kennedy explains that
Elder has gone back to an annotated proof copy of the vocal
score at the Elgar Birthplace Museum and has identified some
30 passages in the work, annotated in Elgar’s own hand, where
the three named Apostle soloists - Peter, John and Judas - are
supplemented by a further 9 male singers (here 5 tenors and
4 basses) who form the Chorus of Apostles. This group of singers
joins in with the three principals at passages such as ‘We are
the servants of the Lord’ (4 bars after Cue 43). At other points
– ‘Some say John the Baptist…‘ is one - they sing short passages
that are usually sung by all the men of the chorus. Michael
Kennedy suggests that “this performance is probably the first
since Elgar conducted The Apostles in Hereford on 7
September 1921, at the Three Choirs Festival, to incorporate
Elgar’s intentions at several points in the oratorio.” I’m bound
to say that I’ve never heard this way of doing things employed
in any performance that I’ve heard or sung in over the years.
Does it make a difference? Well, actually, I think it does and
it makes quite a good deal of sense – both dramatically and
scripturally – that all the Apostles utter the words in question.
The nine singers are drawn from the Royal Northern College of
Music and from Manchester University and they acquit themselves
very well.
It’s been a stimulating process not only listening to this very
fine new recording but also comparing it with the Boult and
Hickox recordings. Both of those earlier recordings have been
out for quite some time so we don’t appear to have carried a
detailed review of either on MusicWeb International; consequently,
a little more by way of comparative comment may be helpful on
this occasion. Let’s start by considering the soloists.
The soprano doubles as The Angel Gabriel and as The Blessed
Virgin Mary. We hear her in the former guise, near the start,
in the section called ‘In the Mountain – Night’. Here the benchmark
performance is that by Sheila Armstrong for Boult. In her very
first entry she observes the marking pp and the direction
‘distant’ better than anyone. In fact her ethereal account of
this Angel’s solo is wonderful. Later in the work she’s deeply
affecting as The Blessed Virgin in the solo ‘Hearken, O Daughter’
during the Cesarea Philippi scene. The crystal purity of Miss
Armstrong’s voice and her radiant tone give immense pleasure
here and throughout her performance. Above all, there’s a marvellous
simplicity of utterance to her performance – art concealing
art. Rebecca Evans sings very well for Elder and comes close
to matching Sheila Armstrong at times but is not, in the last
analysis, quite as magical. I find Alison Hargan on the Hickox
recording a little too ‘present’, though she sings well enough.
Partly this may be due to the immediacy of the Chandos recording
but I think it’s also a matter of style and of timbre.
The other female soloist has some passages of narration but
her prime solo passages come as Mary Magdalene in the third
scene of Part I, ‘By the Sea of Galilee’. Alice Coote was highly
successful as The Angel in Elder’s Gerontius recording
and she gives another very fine performance here. The Magdalene
role is far from easy to put across, both in technical and interpretative
terms. I found her very convincing as the desperate, penitent
sinner (CD 1, track 7 from 3:50); she makes good sense of the
music and of the text. I’m sure no one will be disappointed
by her contribution to this performance; I certainly wasn’t.
She’s a mezzo, however, whereas both Alfreda Hodgson (Hickox)
and Helen Watts (Boult) were contraltos. I think that perhaps
the extra richness and depth of range in their voices give them
a bit of an advantage. Helen Watts is very good but, for my
money, Alfreda Hodgson is outstanding and she really engages
the listener’s sympathy for Mary Magdalene.
Like Alice Coote, Paul Groves was a marvellous contributor to
Elder’s Gerontius set. Here his role is less prominent,
confined mainly to passages of narration and to ensemble work.
He’s excellent throughout and I admire the lightness of touch
and natural flow that he brings to his narrations. His voice
is clear as a bell throughout and though I mentioned his vocal
lightness, which he judges expertly, there are several passages
where a more heroic timbre is needed and here we’re reminded
of his Gerontius credentials. I’d rather forgotten how good
Robert Tear is for Boult. Later in his career I often felt his
voice had an unwelcome ‘bleat’ to it but that’s certainly not
the case in Apostles. He sings with sensitivity, clarity
and intelligence. I’m a little less enamoured of David Rendall
(Hickox). He has a fine voice and a ringing timbre but I think
his approach is a bit too close to being operatic at times.
The role of Peter is central in Kingdom but much less
to the fore in Apostles; indeed, there isn’t a single
extended solo for Peter in the work. David Kempster, who I don’t
recall hearing before, does a very good job for Elder but Benjamin
Luxon (Boult) and Bryn Terfel (Hickox) also impress. Terfel
recorded this part relatively early in his career before he
became prone to the exaggeration both of words and music that
I find so distracting - and disappointing – in some of his later
work. In Apostles his big, then-youthful voice is just
right for the impetuous but sincere and committed Peter. However,
as I say, all three exponents of this role on disc are wholly
successful.
All of which leaves us with the two key solo roles in Apostles.
The part of Jesus is not easy to bring off for the singer must
avoid the trap of sounding preachy, especially in the ‘By the
Wayside’ scene, where Jesus sings the Beatitudes. I like Jacques
Imbrailo’s assumption of the role very much. Throughout the
work his singing consistently falls pleasingly upon the ear
– though one or two of his vowel sounds struck me as slightly
odd. In The Beatitudes section he has the most natural delivery
of all three, helped by Elder’s excellent pacing – and there’s
no question of preaching. Indeed, Imbrailo is the most successful
at presenting a portrayal of Christ as a relatively young man.
I referred earlier to Sheila Armstrong’s essential simplicity
in her role and I’m inclined to think Imbrailo achieves something
similar. By comparison John Carol Case (Boult) sings well in
purely vocal terms. However, I’m afraid that, to my ears, he
comes across as much too formal and he also sounds a bit elderly
– Jesus was a man in his early thirties, let’s not forget. I’m
unconvinced. Stephen Roberts (Hickox) is better. It sounds as
if he was recorded at a slight distance from the other soloists
and with more resonance around his voice. Judging by a live
performance I once saw him conduct, Hickox may have preferred
this physical separation. Whether this approach is correct is
not for discussion here but one registers the slight distancing
when listening to the recording. Roberts sings well though I
thought his top Fs sounded a touch effortful. I think Jacques
Imbrailo is easily the best of the three.
Elgar’s treatment of Judas is unusual. In his comprehensive
and unsurpassable notes that accompanied the original CD issue
of the Boult recording Michael Kennedy explains that “Elgar’s
view of Judas was adapted from Archbishop Whately of Dublin’s
Lectures on the Characters of Our Lord’s Apostles,
in which Judas is depicted as a zealot who over-reached himself
in the certainty that Jesus would deliver himself from his captors
by a miracle”. So, Mr Kennedy points out, Judas and the other
“flawed” character, Mary Magdalene, receive sympathetic treatment
at Elgar’s hands. The long solo of despairing repentance that
Judas sings in Part II as the climax to ‘The Betrayal’ is the
big set piece of the work. It’s difficult music and it’s very
hard to put across. Brindley Sherratt gives a magnificent account
of this extended passage, setting the seal on a fine contribution
to the whole performance. He conveys better than any other singer
that I can recall hearing the black despair, frustration and
self-loathing experienced by Judas and he does this without
exaggeration. He takes some risks, not least over dynamics at
times, but the risks come off and this is a gripping portrayal.
Robert Lloyd (Hickox) is also excellent. His is a studio performance
and he isn’t as daring as Sherratt. In the last analysis Lloyd
perhaps has a slight edge technically but Sherratt’s is the
more dramatic portrayal. Clifford Grant (Boult) is miscast,
I fear. His cavernous voice is unwieldy and not every note is
hit truly. To be honest this sounds a bit like Fafner in the
Holy Land and it’s never been to my taste. When Mark Elder performed
The Apostles at the 2012 Proms he used the
same team of soloists except that Clive Bayley sang Judas -
I strongly preferred Brindley Sherratt’s performance to Bayley’s.
Elder’s Hallé choirs sing splendidly. They’re most attentive
to Elgar’s many instructions regarding dynamics, the words are
clear and the choral tone is always well focused. At the big
moments there’s all the necessary amplitude from the chorus
but what’s especially impressive is their flexibility and the
many instances of really good soft singing. The choirs on the
Hickox and Boult recordings also do well. However, Elder and
Boult steal a march on Hickox in one crucial area. The final
scene, ‘The Ascension’, incorporates a very important part for
a semi chorus. I’m as sure as I can be that the Hallé Youth
Choir form Elder’s semi chorus – there’s certainly a refreshing
youthful timbre to the singing – and I know Boult used a youth
choir, the Choir of Downe House School. Hickox draws his semi-chorus
from the London Symphony Chorus. They sing well but there’s
no differentiation of timbre; the young singers are capable
of bringing a fresh, ethereal quality to the music, which makes
such a difference.
The Hallé plays magnificently. Elder has developed this orchestra
into a top-rank ensemble and currently it is as good as any
I know when it comes to Elgar. The LSO and the LPO play very
well indeed for Hickox and Boult respectively but the Hallé
need fear no comparison. There’s a sheen to their sound and
the ensemble is wonderfully flexible. In the loud passages there’s
great power, though with no suggestion of forcing the tone,
but what really grabbed my attention time after time was the
sensitivity that they bring to quiet passages. Elgar was a glorious
orchestrator who was at the height of his powers in the period
that saw the composition of The Apostles. Elder and
his splendid orchestra bring out all the colour, richness and
inventiveness in this score.
At the end of the day the triumph is Mark Elder’s. He’s a marvellous
Elgar conductor, as he’s already proved many times. The score
abounds with minute tempo modifications and observance of these
is essential if the vital ebb and flow in an Elgar score is
to be captured. Elder is masterly at this. Nothing escapes his
attention but, more than that, he makes these tempo modifications,
many of which are tricky and last only a bar or so, seem absolutely
natural. However, the success of the performance is not just
a matter of minutiae. Elder has a wonderful feel for the sweep
of the work and his extensive operatic experience is surely
crucial in putting the score across. Much of Apostles
is essentially reflective but dramatic thrust is vital also
and Elder is convincing throughout and in every respect. Both
Boult and Hickox offer insightful interpretations but neither
trump Elder. He paces the score superbly. There are several
places where he is swifter than either of his rivals – overall,
Hickox has a rather too much of a tendency to expansive speeds,
I feel. Perhaps the most obvious example is the noble chorus
‘Turn you to the stronghold’ with which Part I ends. In his
biography of Boult Michael Kennedy quotes a letter that the
conductor wrote to him at the time of the sessions for his recording
in which he says that he felt the printed metronome mark (crotchet
= 88) is too fast at the start. However, he went on to say that
he was “afraid” he had made the chorus sound like a prayer.
Boult and Hickox are both appreciably slower than the metronome
mark and the chorus sounds solemn. Elder is almost spot-on and,
at his speed, the chorus flows beautifully and has the air of
quiet confidence and reassurance that Elgar surely intended.
I felt that Elder’s tempo selection was convincing throughout
the oratorio.
The new recording was made under performance conditions and
engineer Steve Portnoi and his team have achieved excellent
results. Their recording offers a satisfying concert hall perspective
and balance; there’s just enough distance and ambience but lots
of detail emerges without any suggestion of performers being
put under the microscope. The soloists are expertly balanced.
The Chandos recording for Hickox is more refulgent but perhaps
a little too up-front. It’s a tribute to the combined skills
of that great EMI team, Christopher Bishop and Christopher Parker,
that Boult’s Kingsway Hall recording still sounds so well almost
40 years after it was made. However, it doesn’t quite deliver
the same experience as the two more recent recordings.
I would never want to be without Sir Adrian’s wise and deeply
satisfying reading of this wonderful score. The Hickox set also
has much to commend it. However, anyone who heard Elder’s memorable
performance of The Apostles at the Proms on 10 August
will know that he has the full measure of this work. His recording
must now be the clear first choice.
I suspect that the Hallé’s Elgar Edition on CD must
now be close to completion. One must admit that works such as
King Olaf and Caractacus are unlikely to be
commercially viable and virtually all the great masterpieces
have now been recorded by Elder and his team. I still live in
hope that Sir Mark will give us his interpretation of Anthony
Payne’s reconstructive work on the Third Symphony. However,
even more than that I hope he will record The Spirit of
England. The relative neglect of this wonderful, eloquent
work is a crying shame. With the centenary of the outbreak of
World War I almost upon us that would be an appropriate time
for a Hallé recording. In the meantime this superb Apostles
is a mandatory purchase for all Elgar enthusiasts
John Quinn
See also review
by Paul C Godfrey
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