“ISRAEL IN EGYPT”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29205, 16 May 1960, Page 13

“ISRAEL IN EGYPT”

Handel Oratorio By Harmonic Society

The Christchurch Harmonic Society, under its new conductor, William Hawkey, gave a splendid performance of Handel’s oratorio "Israel in Egypt” on Saturday evening, and it must have been a proud occasion for Mr Victor Peters to see and hear his old choir in the safe and capable hands of such an excellent new conductor. Nowadays especially the requirements for a choral conductor are many, both musical and human; and, to put it briefly, Mr Hawkey is the man for the job. An unabridged performance of a Handel oratorio which is not the "Messiah” is always an event of interest to admirers of this composer. His acknowledged masterpiece is by no means typical of his oratorio output, and the very nature of its subject matter led the composer to pour forth, in a matter of three weeks, music of the deepest humari understanding and sympathy—the spirit in short, of the New Testament . The essence, however, of "Israel in Egypt” is that as Frank Malthus and Donald Jack explained in a perfectly matched duet for two basses, the Lord is, basically, a Man of War, quite ready to cast £haroah’s chariots into the sea, making sure that the chosen captains are safely drowned. Handel was certainly in his element if it was a question of depicting a battle-ground that consisted for one moment of floods that "stood upright as an heap” after previously serving as dry land. There has been some interesting scientific speculation about this phenomenon recently, but one feels that if Handel were concerned with modern scientific warfare, he would still confine himself to the dynamic power available from an athletic eight-part chorus to depict mass movement of huge quantities of matter, and would still do the job better than the late Cecil B. de Mille. Here Mr Hawkey showed his extreme competence in handling large choral forces. Particularly, effective were the neat antiphonal effects between the choirs, where listeners keen on the competitive spirit in music-making could notice the slightly fuller tone of the sopranos in the first choir to that of their compatriots in the second, but the slightly more alert sound of the tenors in the second choir in comparison with those of the first; whereas perhaps between both lots of altos and basses there was little to choose. But if Pharoah's men found the Red Sea awkward to advance into, the chorus found, or showed no difficulty at all in adjusting themselves to the Theatre Royal; they gave no appearance of being in unusual surroundings, and showed commendable adaptability. Mr Hawkey was undoubtedly right in giving the whole work * thoroughly straightforward reading, and indeed showed us the maturity of his musicianship by not being led into the temptation of over-refining Handel’s granite-like music.

All the soloists were good, and • few arias outstanding. ‘Thou shalt bring them in,” sung *>y Mary Pratt (contralto) just had that indefinable air of simple and unquestionable authority that made it unquestionably the best ana of the evening. The duet for two sopranos, “The Lord is ®y strength,’ was beautifully and brightly done by Heather Taylor and Edna Boyd-Wilson. Edmund Bohan dealt effectively **th the tenor recitatives and arias, which contain by no means the most gratifying music of the evening. “Israel in Egypt" is noted for large number of big, lively, choruses, with relatively few anas This, then, was the choir’s evening rather than the soloists’. **“ far the best choral singing 'nke in this year’s St Matthew J’aarion) was to be found in the and furious numbers, though r*ye was only one of the more •elective number that really ’ n ’aaed the mark; this was “But •• for His People.” This, like •few other movements in triple “®e, tended to waltz along too nonchalantly without enough sus*an>ed concentration on the melodic line. The John Ritchie Orchestra (augmented) played well for the Occasion, and had a more difficult Job than might be expected. But •“U it was a particularly happy occasion for them with the return “Thomas Rogers, the leading cellist, who had been indisposed for some months. —M.H.T.