Concert Review:
Handel’s Anthems beautifully handled by skilled musicians
By Richard Todd, The Ottawa Citizen, December 10, 2012

Handel’s Coronation Anthems
Theatre of Early Music and Schola Cantorum
Daniel Taylor, conductor
Knox Presbyterian Church - Saturday December 8th

Handel’s four Coronation Anthems are not in any sense Christmas music, but they sound so celebratory that with different words they might pass readily as music of the season. They were the backbone of a concert given Saturday evening at Knox Presbyterian Church by Daniel Taylor’s Theatre of Early Music and a choir made up mainly of members of Toronto’s Schola Cantorum.

The all-Handel program began with the Overture to the Water Music played conductorless by the TEM’s superb baroque orchestra. The quality of the playing and idiomatic styling were to be the rule for the entire program. Although it’s unfair to everyone else, in a way, the beautiful oboe playing of Matthew Jennejohn and Geoffrey Burgess needs to be singled out.

The first of the Anthems was perhaps the most familiar, Zadok the Priest. After several measures of orchestral introduction, the chorus came in with a most impressive double-forte, especially remarkable for an ensemble of 25 voices. The singing that followed was uniformly excellent, boasting all of the core technical values including balance, blend, precision and intonation.

Next came How beautiful are the feet of them who preach the Gospel of peace from Messiah, nicely sung by soprano Agnes Zsigovics. Zsigovics is familiar to most followers of vocal music in these parts, and her rendition on Saturday did not disappoint.

Then there was the anthem The King Shall Rejoice sung by the chorus. Once again the performance was entirely apt and beautiful.

The second half of the program began with tenor Michiel Schrey singing an aria from Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt, The Enemy Said. Like Zsigovics, Schrey has sung here frequently and hasn’t even begun to wear out his welcome.

In fact, if you want a hint as to why the chorus was so good, you have only to look at its roster, which includes not only the likes of Schrey and Zsigovics, but also bass-baritone Alexander Dobson, whose rendition of The Trumpet Shall Sound was one of the evening’s highlights. His singing wasn’t all that made it special though, the fellow who sounded the baroque trumpet, Alexis Basque, was superb as well.

The final anthem, My Heart is Inditing, was the most elaborate of the four. In the first place it has four movements, making it the longest of them. Also, it is the only one to employ chorus and soloists. It integrates them well and made for an especially pleasing conclusion to the concert.

 

Theatre of Early Music - Latest Release

Analekta ANA 29841 November 2012

Ave Maria 1. Ave Maria Giulio Caccini (1551 - 1618) Alain Lefèvre [Piano] and Daniel Taylor [Countertenor] 2. Ave Maria Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) Daniel Taylor, Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal Theatre of Early Music 3. Ave Verum William Byrd (1543 - 1623) Theatre of Early Music Choir 4. Ave Maria Josquin Desprez (circa 1455 - 1521) Theatre of Early Music Choir 5. Ave generosa Hildegard von Bingen (1098 - 1179) Daniel Taylor [Countertenor] and Amanda Keesmaat (Cello) 6. Magnificat Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643) Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal Solo: André-Nicolas Chantal-Fortin 7. Ave Maria Jacques Arcadelt (1505 - 1568) Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal 8. Ave Maria Anton Bruckner (1824 - 1896) Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal 9. Magnificat Arvo Pärt (1935 - ) Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal Solo: Victor Guilhe la Combe de Villers 10. Ave Maria Charles Gounod (1818 - 1893) Daniel Taylor, Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal Theatre of Early Music Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, Gilbert Patenaude, Director The Theatre of Early Music: Daniel Taylor, Director Luc Beauséjour, Organ Amanda Keesmaat, Cello Alain Lefèvre, Piano "In this latest release from Canadian label Analekta, Daniel performs a disc of "Ave Maria’s" written by Caccini, Schubert, Byrd, von Bingen, Monteverdi and others, so provides a definitive disc of this repertoire performed by a world class singer. " MKT - UK More information or to order on line in UK: MDT - UK To listen to Ave Maria or to order a CD on line or download MP3 from Analekta please click here: Order Now

 

Ottawa Music & Beyond Festival Reviews

Opening Night Gala Concert

Wednesday, July 4 evening a host of artists launched the Music and Beyond festival with a gala featuring 30 or so instrumentalists and singers in various combinations performing a nice variety of repertoire.

It began with Daniel Taylor and his Theatre of Early Music, chorus and orchestra, who presented Handel’s anthem, Zadok the Priest. It was a splendid performance; one can scarcely imagine a stronger way to open a festival.

Richard Todd, Ottawa Citizen July 5th, 2012

The Royal Treatment - Ottawa audience graced by performance of Handel’s Water Music

Watch Youtube Video of this event now  

On July 17, 1717, King George I sat on a barge on the Thames and listened to the new entertainment he’d ordered up for the occasion "Handel’s Water Music" which musicians performed on an adjacent barge. The king liked his royal-command treat so much, he ordered it to be played three times. The musicians who performed Water Music while floating down the Rideau Canal on Sunday morning likely know the feeling.

Ten musicians from the Theatre of Early Music, strings, woodwinds and horns, played a suite of pieces from Water Music while cruising from Dow’s Lake along the canal to behind the National Arts Centre and back again, as an inspired new part of the Music and Beyond Festival. The round trip, at about two hours, was longer than the program, so the musicians played it over and over again.

The sun, meanwhile, never changed its tune, beating down in steady time on the musicians, who were all dressed in black and stacked like rum barrels in the one shaded part of the vessel.

No tickets were sold for the voyage, so the audience was ashore, on both sides of the canal. A large group of spectators on foot, inline skates and bicycles - a musical pelaton - moved along in pace with the ship. There were people in kayaks and on stand-up paddle boards and there were big cruisers..... The skull-and-crossbones flapped overhead as the musicians soldiered on, playing Handel’s wonderfully compact and prim music. The woodwinds and horns raised one another into a brilliant, reedy thing that does indeed sound like it was written to be played on water. It is also, for me at least, somehow essentially British, even if Handel was not.

There can be no doubt that Music and Beyond should do it again next year, as testified by the rolling audience .... The festival should sell tickets on board - perhaps only 15 or 20 at $100 each and call it a fundraiser - for it was a splendid way to spend a Sunday morning. They should call the trip King for a Day. That’s how I felt.

By Peter Simpson, The Ottawa Citizen July 8, 2012

Baroque Opera Soirée

The Baroque Opera Soirée featured an all-Handel program performed by an all-star group of singers and instrumentalists. It also featured actress Megan Follows reading passages from the Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad......they were interesting in themselves. Follows’ delivery was a little dry, but that suited the material well.

The musical offerings were drawn from a handful of Handel’s oratorios (in English) and operas (in Italian.) The singers included sopranos Nancy Argenta, Karina Gauvin and Agnes Zsigovics, countertenor Daniel Taylor, tenor Charles Daniels and baritone James Westman. A set of excerpts from the oratorio Solomon telling the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of one baby was nicely rendered by Argenta, Gauvin and Taylor.

The next set was drawn from four different oratorios. All were well done, with Zsigovics’ rendition of The Pilgrim’s Home from Theodora being particularly moving. Westman’s rich baritone voice was ideal for Where’ere You Walk from Semele.....Then along came Daniels singing Waft her Angels from Jeptha. It is a glorious aria, and it received a glorious performance.

The second half of the program was even better than the first, beginning with a finely blended duet with Argenta and Taylor and an aria from Rinaldo sung by Argenta alone. Other highlights included Westman’s rendition of Ombra mai fu and especially Daniels’ Love Sounds the Alarm from Acis and Galatea.

As always, the Theatre or Early Music orchestra played beautifully throughout the evening.

Richard Todd, Ottawa Citizen July 9th, 2012

 

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