WHAT a splendid weekend to be a music lover in Glasgow, with the complementary strands of the BBC SSO's shattering Rite Of Spring on Thursday followed by a wonderful RSNO performance on Saturday of Mendelssohn's Elijah, with a perfect cast and everyone in fantastic voice, the RSNO Choruses singing as though their collective life depended on it, and the magical catalyst of conductor Sir Andrew Davis finding in the piece warmth, pain and passion in a gloriously expansive performance which at once gave it teeth by singing it in German (we should call it Elias, not Elijah) while purging it of the accretions of Victoriana.
No sentimentality here; just a sense of progression and purpose.
It was also, thanks to the heart-felt singing of its soloists, soprano Lisa Milne, mezzo Catherine Wyn-Rogers, the blazing tenor of Barry Banks, and the majestic, soulful Hanno Muller- Brachmann in the title role, a profoundly moving experience, ending in light and glory, but crossing many emotional paths en route, with the RSNO locked into the intensity of the moment.
I should also record the fact that this Elijah featured the best RSNO Chorus and Junior Chorus singing in years; and I must not fail to mention the performance of The Youth by RSNO Junior Chorus member Alice Yeoman, whose purity and clarity of tone just melted this listener..
Music
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