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Handel’s ‘Messiah’ from the ASO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Concert Review Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. One show only. Thursday at Symphony Hall.
Is Norman Mackenzie the greatest Atlanta artist few have heard of?
His work is praised — celebrated, it’s fair to say — internationally, yet at home he often seems like just another devoted staff member of a large organization.
Mackenzie is director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus. From Grammy Awards to Carnegie Hall to the Berlin Philharmonic, it’s his chorus, his preparations, that have dazzled all listeners.
As the hand-picked sucessor to Robert Shaw, he started with an already surpassing group. Over the past few seasons, Mackenzie has boosted the chorus’ flexibity and stylistic range, without losing Shaw’s specialties of power and soul. In many significant ways, it’s a better chorus now than ever. Athough Mackenzie rehearses the singers week after week, the on-stage conducting is typically done by another maestro.
Thursday, for one sold-out show, Mackenzie himself led a slimmed down ASO and its 63-voice chamber chorus in music for the season: Bach’s Magnificat and excerpts from Handel’s ‘Messiah.’
The performance made a strong case for the ASO to elevate the stature of its chorus master. As in past performances from the podium, Mackenzie has ideas to convey and the baton technique to get the musicians to follow him. Why not give him a subscription concert, let him stretch himself, see what he can do with a diverse program? I’d love to hear him in an eclectic evening pairing 17th century baroque and 20th century neo-baroque cantatas, plus a concerto, maybe a modern work — or whatever he’s ready to deliver at his high standards.
For Thursday’s Magnificat, he took a ‘historically informed’ approach with illuminating, ennobling results. With swift tempos and a clear, unfussy beat, he got the ASO to play with a light, spare touch, creating an edgy and complex sound that works well for baroque music.
Against this orchestral approach, the chorus sang with rich textures, seemingly more colorful and layered for the comparison. Mackenzie’s interpretation was rather cool, a bit cerebral and always proportionate. He led Bach as sacred church music, and the his abstract approach gave it a certain not-of-this-earthness, a cosmic glow. For long moments at a time, it really seemed like heavenly music.
Where the Magnificat is serious and devout, ‘Messiah’ is, when you listen to the music, theater entertainment by a go-for-pizzazz opera composer. Here Mackenzie could have played to the work’s florid nature, but instead brought it in line with the Bach.
He wasn’t helped by his vocal soloists, however, who were uneven, with an appealing tenor and bass (Frank Timmerman and Gerard Sundberg, respectively), an low wattage soprano (Twyla Robinson) and a disappointing mezzo (Robynne Redmon).
Unlike Bach, most of whose music can be performed, to great satisfaction, by your typical skilled church musicians, Handel tailored his music to the virtuosic opera stars of his day. The ‘Messiah’ aria ‘But Who May Abide,’ for example, was elaborated to flatter the skills of a castrato named Guadagni, who could spit fire for the super-fast colortura passages, navigate treacherous leaps at full speed, sing commanding high notes. That’s what the score demands of the alto-range vocalist who sings the aria.
Still, the orchestra and chorus did remarkable work with their parts — much better than they often do with costly, big-name guest conductors. Here they played with spirit and insight and an unflinching sense of purpose. Credit Mackenzie.
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