Subscriber OnlyMusicReview

Belfast Philharmonic Society marks 150th anniversary with outstanding performance of Elijah

Choir re-creates first concert with Mendelssohn at Ulster Hall, featuring soloists Ben McAteer, Elinor Rolfe Johnson, Claire Barnett-Jones and Dean Power

Elijah: Belfast Philharmanic Society on stage with the Ulster Orchestra at their 150th-anniversary concert. Photograph: David Kinghan/Ulster Orchestra
Elijah: Belfast Philharmanic Society on stage with the Ulster Orchestra at their 150th-anniversary concert. Photograph: David Kinghan/Ulster Orchestra

Elijah: The Power of Sound

Ulster Hall, Belfast
★★★★★

The Belfast Philharmonic Society is celebrating 150 years of its existence, a remarkable unbroken record of performances across many difficult times. Originally created by combining two rival choral societies, the Phil chose Mendelssohn’s Elijah – accompanied by Mr de Jong’s orchestra from Manchester – for that first performance, in 1874. With 400 performers on the Ulster Hall stage, it would have been a really tight squeeze, even if people were smaller in those days.

The present-day Belfast Phil, at just under 140 choristers, and certainly with a greater care for health and safety, has chosen to mark its milestone in the same Victorian concert hall. It has also chosen the same Victorian oratorio that had had the seal of approval from the queen herself: “The recitatives might be shortened, but the whole is a splendid work…”

She wasn’t a bad judge. The Old Testament story of Elijah is full of colour and drama as the prophet revives a widow’s son, confronts the worshippers of Baal, faces up to Ahab and Jezebel, flees to the wilderness, meets the Lord (not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the still small voice), travels to Mount Horeb and ascends to heaven in a flaming chariot. Many an opera has much less action and excitement.

This sesquicentennial performance, sung in English as at the work’s 1846 premiere in Birmingham, is conducted by the Phil’s chorus director, James Grossmith, who digs deep into its drama, maintaining continuity and sense of forward momentum. The chorus plays as vital a role as Elijah himself, creating so much of the exciting urgency in the music. Grossmith’s disciplined choir delivers that. It has certainly evolved over the past year or two, with a better homogeneity of sound and greater unanimity of attack, sensitive to changes in dynamic levels, with clear diction, good intonation throughout and well-placed high notes never sounding strained.

READ MORE
Elijah: baritone Ben McAteer at the Ulster Hall. Photograph: David Kinghan/Ulster Orchestra
Elijah: baritone Ben McAteer at the Ulster Hall. Photograph: David Kinghan/Ulster Orchestra

The chorus is balanced by the four soloists, particularly the key role of Elijah. He needs to be a strong bass with, as Mendelssohn said, a range from harsh and angry to brooding despair. The Northern Irish baritone Ben McAteer assumes that role with great conviction, his voice and characterisation demanding everyone’s full attention. They are well rewarded.

That sense of involvement, married to excellent vocal style, is demonstrated by all the soloists. The soprano Elinor Rolfe Johnson is part one′s widow in distress; her heartfelt plea “Hear ye, Israel” opens part two. The mezzo Claire Barnett-Jones, as the power-hungry Queen Jezebel and an angel, sings a gently lilting O Rest in the Lord without unnecessary sentimentality. The Irish tenor Dean Power, doubling as the visionary prophet Obadiah and the disobedient King Ahab, offers an Italianate, clear and confident eloquence throughout.

Mr de Jong’s orchestra is surely well and truly eclipsed by the Ulster Orchestra, led by Eleanor Corr. Playing with a desk short of its normal string strength, the orchestral balance loses none of its vibrancy. Grossmith achieves a well-integrated and tight ensemble that adds to the energy and drama of the performance. The contribution of the Ulster Hall’s 1862 Mulholland Organ throughout the evening, in the hands and feet of Tristan Russcher, is particularly welcome.

It is a concert to warm the heart, reinforcing the merits of Mendelssohn’s music and recognising the invaluable contribution of the Belfast Philharmonic Society over so many years.