Singers stand out in seldom-heard Elijah

Talents of Vancouver Bach Choir, in concert with VSO, showcased in Mendelssohn work

by David Gordon Duke

VANCOUVER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/
VANCOUVER BACH CHOIR
Elijah
Saturday November 19
Monday November 21
Orpheum Theatre

It’s hard to think of a less fashionable work than Felix Mendelssohn’s once popular grand oratorio Elijah. Saturday’s performance by the VSO and the Bach Choir was one of the more controversial bits of programming in an otherwise rather conventional season.

In every respect this was an effective reading. Though bass-baritone Gary Relyea was a last-minute substitute for the indisposed James Westman, he gave his title part presence and great dignity. The other featured soloists, Monica Whicher, soprano, Sarah Fryer, mezzo-soprano, and the ubiquitous Benjamin Butterfield, tenor, were his match in style and stature, all confident in their understanding of Mendelssohn’s opera-manque idiom.

There was nothing to quibble about in the VSO’s handling of the orchestral accompaniment. Elijah is painted in rich, broad strokes. Maestro Bramwell Tovey kept traffic moving with enthusiastic panache.

If the evening had a single star component, it was the choir. Mendelssohn knew just how to marshal his forces, creating choral parts that are obviously grateful and calculatingly impressive in performance. Celebrating 75 years of singing this season, the members of the Bach Choir were well prepared and responsive to all the demands made of them.

It’s conventional wisdom that Mendelssohn’s later works fail to demonstrate the preternatural brilliance of his early compositions. True enough. Still, Elijah is unquestionably the work of a great musical craftsman. Taking the better part of three hours, it’s substantial and crammed with invention, full of drama and noble sentiment. In its best moments it’s intoxicated with the glory of Bach: arias with cello or oboe obbligato, chorale-like segments, and a generous use of fugal textures show Mendelssohn’s sincere love for the conventions of the Baroque master.

Why, then, is Elijah so antithetical to contemporary taste? Perhaps it’s the black-or-white nature of Mendelssohn and librettist Julius Schubring’s perspective. Good is Very Good; bad is Vile. One is on the side of the angels (nicely sung from the balcony by the Young Women of Sarabande) or not. The music is either sweet (Tovey knows better than to let these passages become saccharine) or grand (and, dare one use the word, smug).

Certainly Elijah has manifest rewards. Certainly listeners interested in the great choral/orchestral repertoire owe it to themselves to hear a solid performance of a significant work. But these days once-cherished Victorian fish knives invariably find themselves put away in the attic. Despite the attention lavished on this weekend’s Elijah, its revival proved more quixotic than timely.

Vancouver Sun
21 November 2005

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