New York Philharmonic – Ton Koopman conducts Handel’s Messiah

Over the past two decades a period-instrument aesthetic has dominated the Philharmonic’s annual presentations of Messiah with early-music specialists such as Harry Bicket, Jeanette Sorrell, Masaaki Suzuki and Fabio Biondi recruited to conduct them. This year Ton Koopman, founder of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, returned to lead an ensemble of pairs of oboes and trumpets, bassoon, timpani, and two-dozen strings – with cello and organ continuo, and the 40-member Musica Sacra choir, while discreetly accompanying recitatives from the harpsichord. 

In this, the fourth of four performances, the soloists sang with style and embellished with taste. Maya Kherani’s rich and deeply resonant soprano commanded attention from the start, with her dramatic delivery of the angel’s recitative announcing the birth of Jesus and the elaborately ornamented passages in arias rendered with elegance and ease. She was matched by Maarten Engeltje, who sang ‘But who may abide’ with pure and radiant tone and infused ‘He was despised’ with poignancy. Kieran White’s clear and luminous lyric tenor shone in the opening recitative ‘Come ye my people’ and his runs in ‘Ev’ry valley’ were dispatched with admirable flair. Klaus Mertens used his expressive instrument to magnificent effect in ‘Thus saith the Lord of Hosts’ and offered a particularly robust rendition of ‘Why do the nations’. The members of Musica Sacra demonstrated supple phrasing, crisp diction, and fine balance, with the flexibility to sing ever so softly, but provide power when needed, as in ‘Hallelujah’.

What most distinguished this Messiah was Koopman’s dynamic direction, presenting Messiah with one interval, intermission following ‘All we like sheep’. During the two hours, the octogenarian conductor stood at his instrument, using precise gestures to lead the ensemble with tremendous authority, sitting only when playing along with Matthew Christakos’s cello and Kent Tritle’s harmonium. Shaping the music with an ear for the dramatic, he elicited an exceptionally lean, lithe and joyful interpretation of Handel’s beloved oratorio, one which warmed the heart and lifted the spirits.

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