{"id":2711,"date":"2009-02-26T19:48:16","date_gmt":"2009-02-26T11:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=2711"},"modified":"2018-03-14T13:16:38","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T05:16:38","slug":"oratorios-masses-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/02\/26\/oratorios-masses-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Oratorios & Masses II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Handel: Israel in Egypt<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

If I had to select a single favorite single number from a large choral work, it\u2019d have to be \u201cSing Ye to the Lord\u201d, the finale from Handel\u2019s Israel in Egypt<\/em>. This oratorio isn\u2019t as well-known as Messiah<\/em>. I don\u2019t think the morning choirs at Wesley have attempted numbers from this work for sure \u2013 I hear \u201cFor Unto Us a Child is Born\u201d and \u201cHallelujah!\u201d from Messiah <\/em>often enough.<\/p>\n

Handel wrote Israel in Egypt<\/em> in 1738, and he composed off passages from Exodus and Psalms, with several songs drawn from verses recounting the plagues inflicted on Egypt. Unfortunately, the work was not well-received by the London audiences, who were apparently not used to hearing an oratorio that comprised so many choruses rather than arias.<\/p>\n

Truth to tell, it\u2019s this respect of Israel <\/em>that draws me more to this work rather than Messiah<\/em>. Moreover, the chorus numbers were scored not for one but a double <\/em>chorus even.<\/p>\n

I got into this work rather late I remember; about in the late-90s when I was starting to wind down my classical music acquisition. The CD album I picked up was released by Decca featuring the Choir of Christ Church Cambridge & English Chamber Orchestra under Simon Preston<\/a>. Simon Preston is actually a pretty famous organist. He was in Singapore in 1988 to perform with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra at the Victoria Concert Hall, a concert I attended while as a JC1 student at Anglo-Chinese Junior College.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

As it was, there weren\u2019t many CD recordings of this work, compared to the gazillions I can find of Messiah<\/em>. So, the ECO \/ Preston performance was the only one I had for years until this year when I had a revival in interest in choral music. Scouting around eMusic found me three recordings of the oratorio, and I bought two of them: by The Sixteen & The Symphony of Harmony conducted by Harry Christophers<\/a>; and by the Aradia Ensemble and conducted by Kevin Mallon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Between the latter two, I\u2019d be hard press to choose a favorite! The Christophers\u2019 ensemble reminds me the old Deutsche Grammophon recordings of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra<\/a>; they were famed for perfect articulation of each note in each of their recordings. The Aradia Ensemble recording sounds a little smaller in size and the singing I thought didn\u2019t have the same tight discipline as The Sixteen.<\/p>\n

That said, there\u2019s still an inexplicable charm in the Mallon recording, and the video below of a recording session for their interpretation of Israel in Egypt <\/em>shows. The number they’re singing is “He gave them hailstones for rain” from Act II.<\/p>\n

httpvh:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mRS-zDKaFUE<\/p>\n

Both are greatly accomplished performances that I alternate listening to.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Handel: Israel in Egypt If I had to select a single favorite single number from a large choral work, it\u2019d have to be \u201cSing Ye to the Lord\u201d, the finale from Handel\u2019s Israel in Egypt. This oratorio isn\u2019t as well-known<\/p>\n

Read More Oratorios & Masses II<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","wpcat-11-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}