Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah was premiered in Birmingham in 1846, the work going down a storm with multiple encores (Mendelssohn brought his German brass section) and was hugely popular thereafter with Victorian choral societies – almost pipping The Messiah to the top choice. It is less performed nowadays, so it was a treat to catch this performance sung in English by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chorus with Roderick Williams as Elijah and Maxim Emelyanychev conducting.
Mendelssohn had Jewish family roots but was baptised a protestant – for him, the powerful Old Testament story had its religious attractions. As an oratorio, it is a blockbuster of drama and excitement, more operatic than churchy, and requiring a sizable orchestra and a capable choir with plenty of stamina, which the SCO Chorus had in spades. The work focuses on key points in Elijah’s life as he tries to prove Baal is a false God by sending a crippling drought across the land, bringing back a widow’s son from death, arranging a bonfire competition and slaughtering the priests of Baal. It is a properly colourful Old Testament tale with an easily-swayed mercurial crowd, an earthquake, and storms of wind and fire. Soloists are characters in the story, but also step out of the tale to sing reflective arias.
Emelyanychev was like a coiled spring of energy conducting without podium or baton, urging his players on in a beguilingly organic interpretation. I am sure Mendelssohn would have approved of the brass section with four horns, each with a forest of crooks on their music stands, natural trumpets, three antique looking trombones and a characterful orphicleide who all brought a deliciously pungent period edge to the music. Extended string sections and generous woodwinds brought heft and colour all underpinned by the Usher Hall organ for the many choruses, Michael Bawtree deftly adding extra registration as the music swelled.
Heading a strong solo team, Roderick Williams was a stunning Elijah, his baritone declamatory and authoritative with the wayward crowds and in his invocations to God – but tender as he fled to the wilderness, and heartbreaking as the spiritually broken man in the Bachian aria “It is enough”, with plangent cellos accompanying. Carolyn Sampson was a brightly sung compelling Widow, her standout aria “Hear Ye, Israel” picked up momentum as she thrillingly opened up her top register. Mezzo Anna Stéphany doubled as the Angel and evil Queen Jezebel who calls for Elijah’s death, her lovely burnished warm tone flowed like liquid gold in her aria “Woe unto them”. Thomas Walker was Obadiah, Elijah’s supporter and bad King Ahab, a bright clear storytelling tenor. Rowan Pierce was the Boy, sent up to the mountain to look for rain, spotting a cloud the size of a man’s hand. The final quartet was sublime.
The 70-strong SCO Chorus, directed by Gregory Batsleer, were stunning, packed with enough energy to give the many weighty choruses a wall of superbly blended sound, delivered with pinpoint accuracy. The chorus takes on many characters, most dramatically as they call on Baal to light their fire, then to slay the priests or siding with Jezebel as she plots Elijah’s death. There was as much drama in the softer choruses, as in the hymnlike “He that shall endure to the end...” The sheer muscularity held right up to the final resplendent “Your light shine forth”, Elijah’s fiery chariot heading to the heavens.
Driven on by the energetic Maxim Emelyanychev and the period orchestral colours, this Elijah was a dramatic treat, a highlight as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s 50th season draws to a close.
