by Nicholas Jones
The short-lived English composer Henry Purcell wrote works that rank among the masterpieces of the Baroque. But, like many artists of the 17th century, he also had to produce a lot on demand. In his position as organist at both the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey, he needed to work up music for a number of royal occasions. Necessarily, while some of his music is deeply personal, other works — like his odes for the queen’s birthday — were clearly more routinely produced. [Read more…]
When you’re taking the risk of performing Handel’s most celebrated oratorio from end to end, you need to field a quartet of soloists with alluring personalities, bring together a stellar chorus and orchestra, and be able to count on your own fine sense of pacing — otherwise this two-and-a-half hour work could become tedious soon after the “Hallelujah” chorus. Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire had all of these elements securely in place on Saturday night at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. Its version of Messiah — presented with a sense of theater, as Handel intended it to be — scintillated, charmed and inspired the large audience from Overture to “Amen.”