High-pitched bells ringing down the scale, a solo treble singing in a hall decked out in red and green . . . it must be Christmas. But no, this aria with jingle-bell carillon accompaniment was just one arrow from Handel's armoury of evocative sound, something he perhaps never employed to more enthralling effect than in L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, his setting of Milton's ponderings on the merits of Mirth and Melancholy.
The conclusion of this debate, reached courtesy of the work's secondary librettist Charles Jennens in Part 3, is that one third M (Moderation) is the way forward.
It's a tribute to Handel's genius that he can make dull old common sense sound sensually appealing. The penultimate number, in which soprano and tenor join in the work's only duet, restores "intellectual day" in music of quite unacademic loveliness; here we had the oboes and bassoons standing to play their solo lines, divided from the singers only by a bed of muted, gently undulating strings.
Indeed, there were several opportunities for individual members of William Christie's French period instrument group to show what they were made of. The spotlight shone brightest on the flautist Serge Saitta, who in Sweet Bird provided the song that soprano Sophie Daneman strove to imitate. In the next aria, the horn player Glenn Borling demonstrated single-handedly the Albert Hall's famous echo.
The four vocal soloists were well chosen. As Mirth's representative, the communicative tenor Paul Agnew was in a way the evening's Master of Ceremonies, brusquely dismissing Melancholy with the work's opening words, then roaring with the laughter that Handel so seamlessly wrote into the first tenor aria. Daneman was his pensive opponent, her light, silky soprano seemed to caress every note she sang, and even when she lost her place in one number, her composure only barely slipped for a moment. The 12-year-old treble Tristan Hambleton was similarly poised and Andrew Foster-Williams, a late substitution as bass soloist, impressed especially in his languid final aria, which left him room to show the richness of his tone. Christie conducted with a spring and both orchestra and choir replied in kind.
For Handel lovers, Christmas had come early.
Related links:
18.07.2001: Proms 2001 goes global with live webcasts
07.07.2001: Absurd rituals and jingoism: here come the Proms
