Tag Archives: Benjamin Hulett

RSNO / Curnyn

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Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Even without the vicissitudes of the pandemic, the RSNO’s annual Messiah has been very much a moveable feast in recent seasons, and this one came to rest in an unaccustomed pre-Christmas slot that is currently more often associated with chamber choir concerts of the work by The Sixteen and Dunedin Consort (who perform it in Perth, Edinburgh and London next week).

At the same time, the gap between the performance styles of a big orchestra-and-chorus Messiah and the historical recreation of its Dublin premiere has also narrowed. With early music man Christian Curnyn on the podium, a compact version of the RSNO – still mostly of regulars – was joined by Mark Hindley at the harpsichord and Chris Nickol on chamber organ for a brisk version of the oratorio using what is probably the briefest permissible version of the score.

Led by Sharon Roffman, the strings and few reeds played their period part in crisp style thoughout, joined at the zenith of Parts 2 and 3 by the trumpets of Chris Hart and Marcus Pope and timpanist Paul Philbert.

The unique selling point of an RSNO Messiah is, of course, its Chorus and this live appearance by the amateur singers of the choir followed many a long month of inactivity thanks to coronavirus. So it was perhaps to be expected that there was something a little tentative about their first chorus And the glory of the Lord and some slightly ragged entries early on. It was not long, however, before they settled into their stride, and by the sequence of choruses in Part 2, culminating in a sparkling All we like sheep, all was well. More than that, here was often some exemplary ensemble singing, with a warmth of tone and balance across the sections – and a sense of unforced effortlessness at any pace or pitch.

All of which provided the ideal context for a very fine quartet of soloists indeed. Soprano Jeni Bern, countertenor Tim Mead, tenor Benjamin Hulett and bass-baritone Matthew Brook were superbly well-matched. All four have fascinatingly varied CVs and shared an expressiveness in their arias that served the narrative drive of the work, and Curnyn’s approach to the music. Mead and Hulett are both pure-toned with power across their ranges – especially impressive in the music for the alto – while Brook and Bern brought a more dramatic edge to their contributions. Brook’s Why do the nations? sounded especially pertinent, while Bern’s I know that my Redeemer liveth was fresh and tastefully ornamented.

Keith Bruce

Pictured: Tim Mead by Andy Staples

BBC SSO/Wilson

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City Halls, Glasgow

For all the strength of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra across all departments, this programme conducted by John Wilson was a real showcase for the strings, from the huge ensemble sound that opened the evening with the first movement of George Enescu’s Suite No 1 – underscored only by Gordon Rigby’s rumbling timpani – to the solo by leader Laura Samuel in the Fairy Garden conclusion of Ravel’s Mother Goose.

Nicely lit and filmed, with plenty of well-chosen instrumental close-ups, for a live-stream that seems to have been a one-time event now absent from the BBC i-Player, it was clearly audible that the opening work was being performed in an empty hall, and that reverberant acoustic suited it well.

Some echoey page-turning noises sat less happily in the midst of Lennox Berkeley’s Serenade for Strings, initially a complete sonic contrast to the ominous Enescu but ultimately becoming more edgy than its lush opening. As was noted in the concert commentary, there is evident of Berkeley’s Parisian training in that development, as there is in Vaughan Williams’s orchestral scoring of his song-cycle On Wenlock Edge.

Tenor Benjamin Hulett was making his debut singing that version, as opposed to the piano-accompanied one, and perhaps he began a little uncertainly, but he warmed well to the task at hand. Houseman was reportedly less impressed by this than other settings of his work, and if the poet’s reservations are understandable, the musical arc of the work was given full expression here by Wilson and the SSO. Is My Team Ploughing? is much less bleak than the familiar Butterworth setting, and Hulett captured its ambiguity beautifully before giving full voice to the longest song, Bredon Hill.

The orchestral coup of the concert was another first, the world premiere of a new edition of the complete ballet music for Mother Goose, the fullest version of Ravel’s suite restored to his 1912 intention, replacing the hotch-potch published in the 1970s. I cannot pretend to have picked up the additions and omissions that Wilson alluded to, but it is true that Ravel was working in an era when the whole sphere of publication and proof-reading was becoming more complex and sophisticated. If he missed out on the benefits of modernism it is more than time amends are made.

The detail of his scoring certainly deserves to be as beautifully played as it was here, with the harp, winds and celesta complementing those strings, continuing to demonstrate that distinctive ensemble coherence alongside the front-desk solo virtuosity.

Available on BBC Sounds. Now also available on the BBC i-Player.

Keith Bruce