The London Handel Orchestra, which is made up of some of London's finest professional baroque players and is directed by Adrian Butterfield and Laurence Cummings, was formed in 1981 by Denys Darlow to perform at the annual London Handel Festival and has gained an excellent reputation for historically-informed performance. The Orchestra performs throughout the Festival at venues including Handel's church, St George's, Hanover Square, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music and St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. It also gives concerts at venues throughout the country outside the Festival period and has performed at the Three Choirs Festival, the Chelsea Festival, the Windsor Festival, the Oslo Church Music Festival, the Tilford Bach Festival and for the opening of the Queen's Jubilee in April 2002 in St George's Chapel, Windsor.
Recordings include Handel’s Aminta e Fillide and The Triumph of Time and Truth conducted by Denys Darlow (Hyperion) and the premiere of Handel’s opera Silla (Somm). The first recording of the 1732 version of the oratorio Esther, conducted by Laurence Cummings, was released in December 2007 and was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone Magazine.
“Delivered with exuberant panache by Adrian Butterfield, these [startling bursts of passagework] brought well-deserved cheers from the capacity audience.”
“Butterfield and his team responded with a performance that had the crowd shouting for more”
Birmingham Post, Feb 2008
Performances in 2009 include:
Handel – Theodora
Opening event of the 2009 London Handel Festival, on Handel’s birthday, Monday 23 February, directed by Laurence Cummings at St George’s Hanover Square, London, with a further performance at the Oslo Church Music Festival on Saturday 21 March
Arias for Senesino with Daniel Taylor, countertenor
with Rachel Brown (flute) and directed from the violin by Adrian Butterfield
Wigmore Hall, London, Friday 27 March
Handel – Alessandro
A fully-staged production in collaboration with the Benjamin Britten International Opera School at the Royal College of Music in London
30 March, 1 and 2 April
Bach – St Matthew Passion
Conducted by Laurence Cummings, and performed in German in the context of Vespers
St George’s Hanover Square, London, Good Friday 10 April
Handel: Jephtha
Conducted by Laurence Cummings, with soloists including John Mark Ainsley as Jephtha
St George’s Hanover Square, London, Tuesday 14 April (Handel’s death day)
“At the start of the 31st London Handel Festival, St George's was full to capacity, as the London Handel Singers and London Handel Orchestra lined up for still more Lenten entertainment. This was one of their finest hours.
Although the lengthy three-part oratorio has no blockbusters until the very end, Laurence Cummings set a cracking pace, particularly for the storytelling recitatives, so that action and reflection followed on from each other with real momentum. With Joshua himself, the chorus are prime movers - and, from the start, with Allan Clayton declaiming from the pulpit and the Singers energising every vividly audible word, the entry of the Israelites into Canaan was swift and sure.
Clayton is that rare thing: an English tenor of lithe yet robust and unmannered muscle. His sidekick, Caleb, was sung expressively by the light bass George Humphreys. Achsah, Caleb's daughter, was sung with sweet radiance and considerable agility by the soprano Katherine Manley; and Othniel, her beloved, by the mezzo Alexandra Gibson - both finalists in earlier Handel Singing Competitions.
Handel wrote them into the story to provide pastoral relief from all that military glory. And, with Katy Bircher's flute and Adrian Butterfield's sweet violin, they vied with linnet and thrush in the melodious grove. Coppery horns and trumpets were splendidly on cue as the walls of Jericho fell - and, after much moralising, the conqu'ring hero approached in a dance-like chorus, and Manley sang every bit as exultantly as if she had indeed possessed Jubal's lyre and Miriam's tuneful voice.”
(Review of Handel’s Joshua, Hilary Finch, The Times, March 2008) |
