Review of BBC Philharmonic concert, 24 September 2016

Haydn’s ‘The Creation’ used to be as popular an oratorio as Handel’s ‘Messiah’. The Victorians loved it, and would cheerfully put on community presentations for Christmas and Easter just as they did the Handel staples.

It’s quite rare to hear a performance now, and Saturday’s audience was heartily grateful to the BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, soloists Lucy Hall, Dietrich Hensel and Robin Tritschler, and maestro Juanjo Mena, for opening the Phil’s Bridgewater Hall season with it.

So they should have been, for care had been lavished upon it. Mena drew the maximum of atmosphere and scene-painting from the orchestral score, and the soloists animated their angelic, and later human roles with every subtlety they could.

The orchestral strings, guest led by Ioana Petcu-Colan, were beautiful to hear in the early baritone and tenor arias, and Lucy Hall brought lovely high pianissimi and warbling trills to her vocalization of Gabriel.

That said, there were some aspects that were puzzling or even a bit disappointing. I think the root of them was that this performance did not quite know whether it was in period style or not. We had natural horns and trumpets, and old-style timpani, but the strings (only a desk short of symphonic strength in each department) and woodwind were today’s instruments and played in mainstream style.

The Bridgewater Hall acoustic lends itself superbly to classical articulation, intense rather than broad tone production, and small forces. It also works brilliantly when a big orchestra fills the room with sound. But this was a compromise, and balancing the numbers in the orchestra with those in the chorus was not all that was needed. Somehow, tonal blend and neatness of note-lengths were not perfect (and, to begin with, ensemble in the band was not, either).

So we had a few raucous full-orchestra fortissimi, including the famous ‘There was light’ moment and the sunrise soon after, and Juanjo Mena’s eagerness to realize the lively rhythms of the choruses while maintaining smoothness of flow, meant some had muddied waters.

I did like the emphasis on Haydn’s little jokes, however – the trombone raspberries that represent the arrival on the planet of ‘heavy beasts’, in particular. And the duet and chorus in part three (by which time Dietrich Hensel had become a gentlemanly Adam and Lucy Hall a sweetie of an Eve), was beautifully paced and balanced, with the choir gently introduced beneath the solo and instrumental textures.

If their attempts to add some latin passion to their first-innocence relationship were not wholly convincing, they became a Papageno-Papagena happy couple by the end, which was lovely.

One more gripe: if only it could have been sung in English. There’s a charm all its own in those antique lines.