Reviews
Gardiner Professor of Music at Glasgow University, John Butt directed the Irish Baroque Orchestra, soloists Ioana Pipelea, Sharon Carty, Thomas Walker, Gyula Nagy, and Resurgam Choir in Handel’s beloved masterpiece in this beautifully redesigned, most appropriate venue. This performance was noteworthy for the brightness and precision of the choral singing and the sensitive, delicately nuanced orchestral playing.
Professor Butt obviously has decided views on tempo and historically correct performance practice, some of which added considerably to the drama inherent in this great work. Others differed greatly from tradition and were quite unconvincing. Some of the tempos that he set caused the music to sound rushed and “jiggy” to my ears but, on the other hand, others caused the music to dance with joy, and more were positively exhilarating. His reluctance to allow notes sound for their full value in, for instance, the ‘Grave’ section of the Overture and the chorus ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ I found particularly disturbing, especially since he demonstrated elsewhere (as in the soprano air ‘If God be for us’) what a wonderful legato line he could draw.
