Georg Friedrich HANDEL Saul oratorio in 3 acts (sung in English)

 

Rosemary Joshua, Emma Bell, Lawrence Zazzo, Jeremy Ovenden, Gidon Saks, Michael Slattery,     

Finnur Bjarnason, Henry Waddington, RIAS-Kammerchor, Concerto Köln/René Jacobs

  

The oratorio Saul was composed in the summer of 1738, first performed on 16th January 1739 at the King’s Theatre in London and was regularly revived during the composer’s lifetime. The celebrated Dead March, probably ensured that it was one of the few Handel oratorios to escape the oblivion that largely overtook his large-scale choral compositions, with the exception of Messiah.

Although oratorios are not intended to be staged, Handel’s Saul is something of an exception, for one thing, it contains extremely precise stage directions which were printed and distributed at performances. Hence audiences at the first English oratorios, aided by Handel’s dazzling musical depiction of the action, could see Goliath’s gigantic strides, the course of the Jordan, or Saul throwing his javelin. In choosing to build their work around this biblical character, comparable to the great Shakespearian tragic figures, Handel and his librettist ensured its perennial success.

 

Both John Eliot Gardiner (Philips) and Paul McCreesh (Archiv) take three discs to incorporate Handel’s masterpiece of 1738-9, but Jacobs, thanks to fastish tempos, squeezes the entire work onto two. If some of the more solemn numbers seem unusually jaunty, it hardly matters, as Jacobs emphasises the dramatic qualities with an inexorable momentum that never lets up (although this is ostensibly a “sacred” work, it was first performed at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, and deals primarily with Saul’s jealous fury at the Israelites’ acclamation of the young David as their saviour from the Philistines). He has a fine cast, led by Gidon Saks’s tortured Saul, Lawrence Zazzo’s superbly sung David — O Lord, Whose Mercies Numberless, his plum aria, is ravishing — and the well-contrasted sopranos Rosemary Joshua and Emma Bell as the sweet-natured Michal and the haughty Merab. Susan Gritton is more polished in the latter role on the McCreesh set, which also has Mark Padmore, peerless as Jonathan, and Andreas Scholl, sublime but German-accented as David. It’s swings and roundabouts, but the new set is cheaper.

Times, Five stars

 

With its Shakespearean range and depth, Saul is on anyone's shortlist of Handel's greatest music dramas. The orchestration has an unrivalled opulence; each of the characters - including the all-important chorus - is brilliantly characterised; and, in the brooding figure of Saul, Handel created a study in psychological disturbance to rival Otello, Wozzeck and Peter Grimes.

This new recording has an immediate advantage over Gardiner (Philips) and McCreesh (Archiv) in fitting on to just two discs, mainly because René Jacobs takes some movements daringly fast. But the results are always exhilarating, never breathless. While this is certainly the most excitingly theatrical Saul on disc, the final elegy has all the tragic nobility you could wish for. Chorus and orchestra are superbly responsive throughout, and the soloists, led by Gidon Saks's baleful, black-voiced Saul, are at least as fine as those on the rival sets. Emma Bell, with a glint of metal in her tone, and the more sensuous Rosemary Joshua are ideally cast as Saul's daughters, while Lawrence Zazzo as David matches Andreas Scholl (on the McCreesh recording) in lyrical allure and surpasses him in dramatic flair.

Richard Wigmore, Telegraph

 

Harmonia Mundi 2 Super Audio CDs HMC801877-78