December 21, 2024
Hodgson Concert Hall, UGA Performing Arts Center
Athens, GA – USA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chamber Chorus, Norman Mackenzie, conductor; Adelaide Boedecker, soprano; Rhianna Cockrell, mezzo-soprano; Thomas Cooley, tenor; Lawson Anderson, bass-baritone.
BACH: Magnificat in D major, BWV 243
HANDEL: Part the First (Christmas Portion) and “Hallelujah” from Messiah, HWV 56
Mark Gresham | 28 DEC 2024
Composed in just 24 days in 1741, Handel’s oratorio, Messiah, was originally conceived as a large-scale reflection on Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Its three parts correspond to themes of the Christian liturgical year: Part I centers on Advent and Christmas, celebrating the Messiah’s coming and birth; Part II delves into Lent and Easter, recounting Christ’s suffering and resurrection; and Part III contemplates salvation and final judgment.
Over time, Part I by itself, with its focus on prophecy and the Nativity, with the iconic “Hallelujah” chorus from Part II tagged on at the end, has become a beloved, essentially ubiquitous Advent tradition in the Anglophone classical music world.
Among this year’s several performances by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus, led by ASO director of choruses Norman Mackenzie, I attended the one in Athens, Georgia, at Hodgson Concert Hall, part of the UGA Performing Arts Center complex on the campus of the University of Georgia, in Athens, Georgia, about 65 miles east of Atlanta. Although it was two hours from my home by automobile, it proved well worth the drive.
Hodgson Concert Hall seats 1,100 people in festival-style seating, offering listeners a greater sense of immediacy, presence, and clarity than the Atlanta Symphony Hall, which helped showcase the ensemble’s long-standing heritage of choral excellence and connection to the late Robert Shaw’s legacy, more readily unveiled in this performance than other recent outings of either the full ASO Chorus or its Chamber Chorus.
There are indeed other choral conductors who pretend to be proteges of Shaw’s choral techniques, but almost all are pretenders to the mantle — Mackenzie, however, is singularly the direct exponent. The main difference is that Shaw had the luxury of ultimately preparing the ASO Chorus for himself to conduct in concert. In contrast, Mackenzie has been obliged, like most directors of symphony choruses, to prepare the ASO Choruses for other conductors who may come to the podium with more or less differing tastes — the exception being these Messiah performances and the Christmas with the ASO concerts, which Mackenzie conducts himself.
This month’s program at Hodgson Hall paired the Christmas Portion of Messiah with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Magnificat in D major, BWV 243, sharing a quartet of soloists: soprano Adelaide Boedecker, mezzo-soprano Rhianna Cockrell, tenor Thomas Cooley, and bass-baritone Lawson Anderson.
Bach’s Magnificat is a setting of the biblical canticle from the Gospel of Luke for five vocal parts and a Baroque orchestra. Composed in 1723 shortly after Bach became Thomaskantor in Leipzig, the original version (BWV 243.1, formerly BWV 243a) was written in E♭ major and included four hymns specific to Christmas. Around 1733, Bach revised the work, removing the Christmas hymns, adjusting instrumentation, and transposing it to D major for improved playability of the trumpet parts. This second version (BWV 243.2) became the standard for performance and remains one of Bach’s most celebrated vocal compositions.
The five-part chorus also assumes five soloists, although only four are actually required, as the soprano II solo (“Et exultavit spiritus meus”) and the several alto solos can all be sung by one soloist, as was the case here by mezzo-soprano Cockrell. Doing that means the brief treble trio (“Suscepit Israel”) must then be sung by the sopranos and altos of the choir — easily enough done. (That is also an efficient solution since the longer Messiah Part I requires only a quartet of soloists.)
Cockrell’s dark, rounded mezzo-soprano impressed with a natural warmth and unforced delivery throughout the evening in both the Magnificat and Messiah, with her voice conveying more dramatic depth in the latter. (Perhaps my favorite movement in the Magnificat is the alto solo, “Esurientes implevit bonis,” in which Cockrell’s vocal part was intertwined with a duo of flutes in obbligato, played by Christina Smith and Todd Skitch, though I would have preferred in this instance a perkier tempo that lightly dances.)
In distinct timbral contrast was the bright, luminous soprano of Adelaide Boedecker, who made her debut with the ASO as soloist in last year’s Messiah. Her flowing solo in the Magnificat, “Quia respexit,” evoked a feeling of wonder and gratitude. In Messiah, the soprano soloist does not sing until after the instrumental Pifa (“Pastoral Symphony”) with a sequence of recitatives that lead up to the acrobatic aria, “Rejoice greatly O daughters of Zion,” Boedecker’s showpiece for the evening.
The reliable tenor Thomas Cooley had a duet with Cockrell (“Et misericordia”) and a solo (“Deposuit potentes”) in the Magnificat, but where he truly shined was in Messiah, in the iconic recitativo accompagnato “Comfort ye, my people” followed by the aria “Every valley shall be exalted” — an unusually compelling rendition in which there was not a dull moment.
In addition to his one solo in the Magnificat, “Quia fecit mihi magna,” bass-baritone Lawson Anderson brought forth a solid, powerful vocal presence to his dramatic numbers in Messiah, “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts” and the accompagnato and aria pair “For behold…” and “The people that walked in darkness.”
As mentioned before, Hodgson Hall benefitted the ASO Chamber Chorus in terms of clarity and presence. Under Mackenzie’s baton, we heard the chorus sounding more “as it was meant to be” in character. Even if the complex melismatic choral parts of the Magnificat were not perfect, the chorus approached them rightly, with credibility. Messiah was the stronger performance of the two works, and the chorus brought their parts forward with assurance. One might even remark that “the Cleveland dot” was alive and well and achieved its musical purpose in both chorus and orchestra. (Ask an older member of the ASO string section if you want to know more about that term.) In any case, the appreciative Athens audience went home happy. ■
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus, led by Norman Mackenzie, perform Handel’s ‘Messiah’ at Hodgson Hall, UGA Performing Arts Center, in Athens, Georgia, December 21, 2024. (credit: Easel Images)
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: aso.org
- Norman Mackenzie: aso.org/artists/detail/norman-mackenzie
- Adelaide Boedecker: adelaideboedecker.com
- Rhianna Cockrell: rhiannacockrell.com
- Thomas Cooley: thomascooley.com
- Lawson Anderson: lawsonanderson.com
- UGA Performing Arts Center: hpac.uga.edu
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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