THE SOUL SHAKER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 920, 29 March 1957, Page 8

THE SOUL SHAKER

Strong in new Arms, lo! Giant Handel stands, Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands; To stir, to rouse, to shake the Soul he comes, And Jove’s own Thunders follow Mars’s Ss. "] HIS quotation from Pope’s Dunciad '" provides a title of 18th century flavour for a BBC musical biography of Handel, The Soul Shaker, which is to be heard from the YA stations, 3YZ and 4YZ, at 2.30 p.m. on Sunday, April 7.

For Messiah alone George Frederick Handel would be assured of immortality; few other serious works are performed and enjoyed so often by so many people all over the English-speaking world. Sir Thomas Beecham once said that there were more choral societies in Lancashire and Yorkshire than there were in France, Italy, Austria, Belgium and Scandinavia put together, with the United States thrown in for good measure. And all

these societies plus a multitude of others all over the Commonwealth sing Messiah at least once a year. Handel was 57 when this greatest of his oratorios was first performed, in Dublin, in 1742; but before, in the 30-odd years from his atrival in England he had already had a good share of triumphs and disappointments. His first opera to be produced in London was Rinaldo, which was performed at the Haymarket Theatre in 1711, After a brief return to Handel settled permanently in England in 1712. His coming to England had annoyed

George, Elector of Hanover, but some months after the Elector became George I of England he was reconciled to his former court conductor. Handel’s first patron was the Earl of Burlington, and later he became musical director to the Duke of Chandos. While in this latter capacity he composed the first version of his first English oratorio, Esther, for which Pope wrote the book. After the Chandos period, the next eight years (1720-28) saw the: triumph of Italian opera in London with Handel as the presiding genius. He wrote more * THE N.Z. WIND ENSEMBLE: In front, Peter Glen (horn) and Robert Girvan (bassoon); behind, James Hopkinson (flute), Norman Booth (oboe) and Frank Gurr (clarinet). See column four.

A than a dozen operas at this time, and was the idol of the nobility. The first performance of The Beggar's Opera (in January, 1728) changed all this, for Gay’s satire on court society, and the parody of Italian opera, ironically won over the public who had thrived on what Gay mocked. Years of struggle for Handel followed-with rival opera companies, and with growing indifference in his new public, until in 1737 the crash came, not only in bankruptcy but in a long period of eclipse. But Handel came finally into his own, into the universal respect of the nation to which he had dedicated some of his music, and at the end, to the honour of a place in Westminster Abbey. The Soul Shaker has as the central climax the first performance of Messiah, and ends with the composer’s burial in the Abbey. Among the less familiar of Handel’s compositions included are the overture to his first opera, Almira, and passages from Rinaldo, Listeners will hear four excerpts from Messiah sung by the soprano Ena Mitchell. The Soul Shaker, which was written by Colin Shaw, features the Sale and District Musical Society Choir and the BBC Northern Orchestra conducted by John Hopkins. Wind Quintet HE New Zealand Wind Ensemble (photo on this page) start their year’s programmes with a performance of the quintet by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen. The work was originally written for five of Nielsen’s friends, all of them wind players. The flute player was Gilbert Jespersen, master of a very refined style of flute playing; the clarinet player was Aage Oxenvad, who had a somewhat choleric temperament, irascible, full of personal, subjective problems, yet warm at heart. The players are given parts that reflect in some way their own personalities, and the work, which is in three movements, ends with a set of variations in which these character portraits: have full play. The work was composed in 1921-22 as a relief from the inu1ense labours of the Fifth Symphony which Nielsen was then working on. He had always hoped to write a concerto for each of his friends. He completed one for the flute which made much of Jespersen’s own persoriality and another, for Aage Oxenvad, the clarinet player, but he was prevented from completing the sequence by his death in 1931 (2YC, Sunday, April 7, 7.30 p.m.).