Sturm and Drang: Messiah in Limerick

 'Yet once a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land

I made it through the wind and rain of Storm Desmond to join the orchestra of  Limerick Choral Union  for their biennial performance of Handel's Messiah - a truly glorious endeavour and one to savour and delight in with a sold out house at UCH. Soloists on this occasion were Jean Wallace, Martha Bredin , Patrick Hyland and John Molloy.

'I want seething and spitting and  none of your niceness' said Malcolm Green as he urged his choristers on to emphasise the elements of sturm and drang in a text. What a thrill to experience the force field that is bass John Molloy as he sang of darkness covering the earth, raging nations and hell raising trumpets. This voice has the heft at the bottom  to make you tremble



 He tells me he has three more Messiah engagements this season, one of which is in Halle, Saxony, the birthplace of Handel. On closer inspection, I note that,not only are there three Irish singers in the line up of the Happy Birthday Haendel -Messiah in Halle but also a familiar figure at the helm in Prionnsías O Duinn who has had this gig for the last nine years, I gather. This has to be at the classiest end of the Sing it Yourself Messiah's available. If you fancy it, you can sign up for the waiting list for the 2016 festival. (My report on a trip to Halle here)

Closer to home, you can sign up to Come and Sing Messiah favourite choruses at St Mary's Cathedral with Peter Barley on Sat 23rd April.

Related Posts Report LCU Messiah  2011 http://cathydesmond.blogspot.ie/2011/12/limericks-handel-for-president.html

Good Grief: Limerick Choral Union Easter Concert

Spirestone Mary Coll, Fiona Linnane

Che Faro  Gluck   sung by Sarah Ellen Murphy

It is ennough  Mendelssohn   Gyula Nagy

Laudate Dominum Mozart    Franzita Whelan 

Stabat Mater  Verdi             tenor Julian Hubard 

Requiem  Mozart  

Good Friday marked a milestone in an epic music  project in Limerick.   One hundred and fifty musicians and singers took to the UCH stage to perform a programme resonant with the grief laden day that was in it.  The concert by Limerick Choral Union and Orchestra marked 50 years of consistently adding to the cultural soundscape of Limerick- a remarkable achievement. I was privileged to be in the orchestra for the occasion and witnessed the final stages of the resurrection of  these sacred gems for  a full house in Limerick's largest auditorium. The evening opened with a new work by Fiona Linnane and Mary Coll prefacing  a selection of of Classical and Romantic choral pieces under conductor Malcolm Green. Mozart's Requiem is familiar to me from the movie, Amadeus and it was exciting  to finally get a chance to get inside the work as a musician.

LCU Conductor Malcolm Green in rehearsal with soprano Franzita Whelan

Over the years, LCU concerts have given Limerick audiences an opportunity to hear singers in the early stages of their professional careers alongside  more seasoned performers. On Friday we heard the much lauded soprano, Franzita Whelan with one of Limerick's own  favourite performers, Sarah Ellen Murphy. New kids on the block were two singers from the Opera Theatre Company stable.  Hungarian baritone, Gyula Nagy is one of the current crop of Young Associate Artists and English tenor, Julian Hubbard will feature in the cast of the Weills political opera, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany which comes to the Olympia stage in June as part of a collaboration between OTC and  Rough Magic Theatre Company.

No shelter under City of Culture Umbrellla for LCU

Given that the endeavour ticked   many cultural boxes, engaging truckloads of local performers and offering a quality programme at modest cost ,a platform for professional singers, airing of new work by a local composer etc, it was surprising that the concert was not included on the programme of the City of Culture. I have commented here before about the lack of print media attention of main stream classical events in Limerick but it seems surprising to see this well organised and hard working outfit marginalized by a local cultural initiative in a year when they might have benefited from the head wind of such  an acknowledgement. You can read a local press piece here

** Despite an busy international and national career, it was my first time to hear Franzita Whelan who is one of select group to have represented Ireland in the Cardiff singer of the World competition (2001).  She was given a most  favourable mention in a letter to the Irish Times back in 2005, which must have had the RTE musicians squirming.  I often use this in my pre-concert pep talks for my students. You can read that  letter, 'NSO and Beethoven'  below.  Judging by the audience response, it seems that the ladies and gentlemen of Limerick Choral Union and our soloists on this occasion know very well the difference between playing and performing and hopefully will continue to do so long after the dust settles on the  City of Culture hoopla.

listen to ‘Limerick Choral Union’ on Audioboo

Last minute of concert followed by sustained applause from 1min in.

    The NSO and Beethoven - Letter to the editor Irish Times 17th May 2005

Madam, - What is the matter with the National Symphony Orchestra? It takes hard work to make Beethoven's ninth symphony sound dull, but there were moments in last Friday's performance which were almost torpor inducing.

The orchestra looked bored and this attitude was more than reflected in the music. Matters were not helped by poor co-ordination and a horn section that at times struggled to hit the higher notes with any semblance of accuracy. The soloists, with the sole exception of Franzita Whelan, looked glum; Ms Whelan at least looked as if she were singing an ode to joy.

The evening was redeemed only by the magnificent singing of the choir who, apart from Ms Whelan, looked as if they were the only people on stage who were actually enjoying themselves. They deserved their standing ovation, which is more than can be said for their accompanists.

Next time the Bavarian Radio Orchestra is in town, the members of the NSO should be made to sit in the front rows in order that they can observe the difference between playing and performing. - Yours, etc.,

FRANK BANNISTER,
Morehampton Terrace,
Dublin 4

Related Posts

http://cathydesmond.blogspot.ie/2011/12/limericks-handel-for-president.html

http://cathydesmond.blogspot.ie/2010/12/limerick-chorale-union-christmas.html

http://cathydesmond.blogspot.ie/2012/04/letter-to-editor-irish-times.html

http://cathydesmond.blogspot.ie/2012/04/german-requiem-in-castletroy-auf.html

http://cathydesmond.blogspot.ie/2010/04/music-of-grief-stabat-mater.html

German Requiem in Castletroy auf Deutsche!

Selig sind, die da Leid tragen, denn sie sollen getrostet werden 

'Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted' .

The liturgical ritual of farewell  has provided the spur for some of the most highly charged and emotional works in the canon and there was a rare opportunity to hear one of the apotheosis of the form by one of the masters of the German Romantic tradition  at University Concert Hall  on Saturday night when Limerick Choral Union dedicated  a performance of Brahm's German Requiem to  members of the choir who have passed away. Sung in the original German, this dramatic setting of the Lutheran text has logistical and practical challenges  being the longest of Brahms works clocking in at about an hour and opportunities to hear it are infrequent.  By coincidence, the work was also performed in the National Concert Hall by the NSO and the RTE Philharmonic Choir the previous evening. The broadcast included an overview of the form in an insightful interval talk by David Vivian Russell  Lyric Concert Friday 20th April

Russell refers to the emphasis in the German Requiem being more on consolation of the living rather than the fate of the dead  and what music of consolation is the fifth movement.  Notoriously difficult for the soloist, the lyric from John's Gospel  was beautifully and effortlessly delivered by soprano Carmel Conway.  Baritone Owen Gilhooly's third movement dialogue with the choir was vigorous yet  smooth ending in a magnificent song of hope and joy. 

Malcolm Green

Johannes Brahms

There was a good house for this  Easter concert with  many family , friends , former members and afficionados in the audience for the programme which included the Italianate Mass for St Cecelia featuring young tenor Eoin Hynes as a complement  to the more substantial German fare.  Among the audience were David Howes,  grandson  and son of  anchor members Harry and  Michael .  David, a Masters student at DIT had earlier in the day been awarded the Todd Cup for oratorio at Feile Liminí with a bass aria from Judas Maccabeus  as had his grandfather 40 years previously. The family were remembering specially  the late Muriel Howes, a  former LCU member who sang with the choir when they last performed the work in 2004.

Percussion at the  ready

Soprano Carmel Conway

Although no aspect of the classical music scene made it into a two page article in the Irish Times  covering Limerick's music scene recently, this was a huge musical  endeavour involving something in the region of 200 people in a  performance no less deserving of acknowledgement and recognition in the national press. As a musician, opportunities to play such great repertoire are so welcome and it was a  thrilling musical experience to savour from the middle of the 50 strong orchestra


Post performance interview with conductor Malcolm Green

listen to ‘Malcolm Green talks about the Limerick Choral Union production of Brahm's Requiem’ on Audioboo

Letter to the editor. Irish Times :Limerick's Music Scene
A Christmas Baroque Gala
A Handel for the President

Related Posts

Limerick's Handel for the President

        How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things



There is nothing like a presidential presence to pep up the sense of occasion and there was  a capacity house at UCH Limerick when President Michael D Higgins arrived with his entourage for the performance of  Handel's evergreen oratorio,  Messiah by Limerick Choral Union and Orchestra. Considering that there must have been a plethora of  Messiahs in spitting distance of the Áras, it was quite a coup to have an tUachtaráin in the house. This was the third time that  I have had the pleasure of performing this work with the Choral Union and on this occasion, although all the soloists (all with strong connections to the region), aquitted themselves well and the orchestra  played with suitable brio it was the choir themselves who stole the show.

Malcolm Green

The 100 strong choral ensemble  fired by the enthusiasm of their director sang tunefully and with great attention to dynamic contrasts in the many wonderful choruses.  My seat in the string section of the orchestra, embedded in the delta of the tenors and the quadruple reeds of Michael Dooley's bassoon and Peter Plunkett's oboe, was a good vantage point to hear  the inner voices of this glorious work (once the boys had completed the ritual grousing about the aforementioned reeds). And also to observe the lovely sense of rapport  between the conductor Malcolm Green and his solid chorus, which appeared to harbour no passengers but sang with verve and enthusiasm throughout. Their audience was remarkably hushed throughout as if totally in thrall to the spell cast by the performers with a minimal amount of seasonal throat clearing.

Stuart O Sullivan's continuo was the solid lynchpin it needs to be to glue this work together, varying the sound occasionally to organ to good effect and Will Palmer's soprano trumpet was suitably  splendid,  filling the large auditorium with bright thrilling sound.

President Higgins

A comprehensive and well produced  programme was available with printed  libretto, biographies, notes on the LCU's history, photographs and context of the work and conveyed a sense of the volume of manpower and effort involved in mounting such a production.  Audience members lingered in the foyer for a considerable time after the performance savouring the sense of occasion .*

'Messiah, like the celebration of Christmas, is sufficiently rich and complex to speak to a range of human needs and emotions, irrespective of its' immediate Judaeo-Christian framework'  
from programme note by Dr. Paul Collins

Previous posts featuring LCU 

Report on LCU's performance of Jenkin's Stabat Mater 2010 

Best gigs of 2010 

* ( It seems a pity that UCH doesn't encourage patrons to linger following performances with bar and café closed )