This concert marked a series of endings. Most obviously, it marked the end of the 2022 Edinburgh International Festival and, with that, the end of the directorship of Fergus Linehan, which added a slight frisson to the words of Elgar’s Angel, “Farewell, but not for ever, brother dear”! It also marks the end of a trilogy of Elgar’s oratorios performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and Sir Andrew Davis. (The Apostles featured in 2016 and The Kingdom in 2019). That also seeded a wider festival partnership between Davis and the RSNO, as they were entrusted with two parts of the EIF’s Ring Cycle. All four of these events, five if you include this Gerontius, were magnificent, and has given the RSNO a prominence in the festival's programme that it really didn't have before. I wonder if the centrality of the RSNO to the EIF’s programme will end up becoming one of Linehan’s most important (and accidental?) legacies to the festival.
Either way, all of the great things about that partnership were on display in this wonderful evening. I don't know what he said to the orchestra, but Davis drew playing from the RSNO that went right to the spiritual heart of this music. Maybe it was the gorgeous sheen on the strings or the strength of the brass, but the sheer beauty of sound in this performance was utterly remarkable, perfectly in keeping with Elgar’s sacred drama of the soul. The opening had a quiet but deep sense of inevitability, with a shudder as Gerontius drew near to death. Then a gorgeous weightlessness, almost timelessness entered the string playing at the opening of Part Two, and the Angel’s final farewell unfolded without a hint of sentimentality or lugubriousness. The great crash before the throne of God was controlled with admirable precision, and the crabbit shards of orchestral writing that surrounded the Demons’ Chorus were as precise and hard driven as “Praise to the Holiest” was majestic.
This Elgar series also brought out the best in the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, who sang with admirable precision and bite under their director, Aidan Oliver. Joined by Christopher Bell’s National Youth Choir of Scotland, they summoned fervent ardour for the prayers of Part One, but excelled themselves in Part Two with a dazzlingly clear Demons’ Chorus and a viscerally grand “Praise to the Holiest.” Even the souls in Purgatory had an air of quiet beauty to them, something that complemented the orchestra’s sound wonderfully.
Karen Cargill’s Angel was the standout of the soloists. It took a while for me to tune into her way with the words, but she became very moving as the action developed, and she crested the top notes very beautifully. Iain Paterson hurled out his declamations with strength and beauty. My only quibble was with Andrew Staples, whose tenor I struggle to love. For me, there’s a nasal quality to the voice that I don’t enjoy, and he sang the opening of Part One with an almost pathetic sense of the old man on his sick bed.
Listeners and voices are a highly personal thing, though: I’m sure many in the audiences won’t even have noticed what I found intrusive, and I admired the way Staples shaped the phrasing and the words. Anyway, it didn’t detract from what was a hugely powerful evening. On several occasions I had goosebumps all over, and if that isn’t an indication of a successful festival closer, then I don’t know what it is.
