Reviews

THE TIMES

Residency at Spitalfields Music (14 Jan 2009)

Four Stars

By writing that John Eliot Gardiner has mellowed with age, I probably risk a libel writ from the great Baroque guru. I daresay that he still rules his magnificent Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists with a whim of iron. But recently a spaciousness, a new expressive lushness and, yes, a joyousness has characterised his performances. The concern for precision and historical style is still apparent, but now infused with humanity and warmth. And the better for it.

Those were my overriding thoughts as he brought to a conclusion, just a couple of days after Twelfth Night, his splendid all-Bach Christmas project: performing the six cantatas of the Christmas Oratorio on six nights, each prefaced by a Brandenburg Concerto and one of the six great motets. He reserved the most exhilarating of the latter, Singet dem Herrn, for this final concert and drew from his alert forces an ideal mix of the tender, lyrical and punchy.

The Brandenburg - No 1, with the piccolo violin - was, if anything, even more ear-popping. Gardiner encouraged rampaging exuberance from his excellent horns, subtle dynamic variations from oboes and strings, and some unusually complex phrasing. Not everything convinced, but that hardly mattered when it was delivered with such conviction.

Much the same could be said of the final instalment of the Christmas Oratorio. At the end of six evenings, a mood that my father's generation would have described as “demob happy” perhaps encouraged very swift tempos - too fast, perhaps, for every stunning chord progression in the opening chorus and every twisty semiquaver in the soprano aria to register properly. But with such fervent soloists (tenor Nicholas Mulroy, soprano Katharine Fuge, and dazzling trumpeter Neil Brough), the panache never faltered.


Richard Morrison

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