If it's Christmas, it's time for Handel's Messiah, though quite why the oratorio has become a festive season tradition is something of a mystery. In Handel's day, it was associated with Lent rather than Advent. Its subject is the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy in Christian theology. Christ's Passion and Resurrection, rather than His Nativity, are the dramatic fulcrum of the work, while its emotional impetus is inherently eschatological, culminating in a radiant anticipation of the Second Coming.
Like all great masterpieces, Messiah is open to a myriad stylistic interpretations and variances in performance practice. On Monday, the Barbican opted for period band authenticity, with Harry Christophers conducting The Symphony of Harmony and Invention and his own remarkable choir, The Sixteen. Christophers' approach is essentially serene and reflective, a meditation on Christian revelation rather than an enactment of its drama. Orchestral textures are warm and soothing. The choral polyphony, every line negotiated with flawless precision, is staggering in its beauty and clarity.
Christ's ministry of peace is thoughtfully given due weight - appropriate, perhaps, as this dark est, most violent of centuries draws to its close. Yet, to some extent, Christophers' approach also cramps the work's emotional range. He seems happiest with the image of Christ as "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," and one misses the sheer ebullience of some of the rest of it. "For unto us a son is born" seemed oddly po-faced. The Hallelujah Chorus didn't rouse as it should, and it was left to the soloists, the women in particular, to communicate the elation as well as the anguish.
Linda Russell's face beamed with pleasure as she bade the Daughters of Zion rejoice, and sang "I know that my redeemer liveth" with the ecstatic radiance of absolute spiritual certainty. Susan Bickley, a great Handelian, was, by turns, nobly dignified in prophecy, ravishing in her vision of Christ the shepherd leading his flock, and unbearably moving in her contemplation of the Passion.
The men weren't quite in the same league. The tenor, James Gilchrist, was elegant throughout, though "Thou shalt smash them like a potter's vessel" needs a lot more heft than he can muster. Matthew Brook, a last-minute substitute for an indisposed Michael George, hectored the recitatives at times, while some of the arias lie a fraction too high for him - though his breath control and coloratura were exemplary throughout.
