Saul is one of the great tragic musical dramas in the English language. Its central theme is the destructive power of envy, with many further insights on human frailties (and some on human virtues), and it includes some of Handel’s most strikingly original ideas. It is framed by an Epinicion (or song of triumph, after the victory over Goliath) and an Elegy (after the Israelite defeat and the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, with the famous Dead March). The vigorous and dramatic recording by Sir John Eliot Gardiner has held the field for some time, but this new one from Germany provides a challenge. Gardiner’s was recorded at Gottingen Festival performances; the rival version is based on a Halle Festival performance although the actual recording was made in a church in Cologne.
A church: that is perhaps a pity, because the acoustic is not really suited to music composed for a theatre (not of course for staging) and the reverberation does tend to soften the firm edges. But the choruses come through pretty well. The Cologne Chamber Choir is about 30 strong, with female sopranos and a couple of male voices among the altos. It is tidy and well balanced, with a controlled and clear top line and a particularly well-defined tenor one too. The big jubilant C major choruses go lustily, including the jolly one with the carillon, and the great Envy chorus at the beginning of Part 2, though possibly taken a little quickly for this acoustic, is duly imposing. The marvellous final chorus of this section, “O fatal consequence of rage”, is impressive, well shaped by the conductor, Peter Neumann, with aptly chosen tempos and a sense of the music’s breadth and consequence. And then, in Part 3, the mourning of the deaths of Saul and Jonathan in that great sequence of E major numbers, “In sweetest harmony” and “O fatal day!”, is done with due gravity and raptness. Almost nowhere is one conscious that the choir are singing in what is for them a foreign language; their pronunciation is carefully managed and virtually impeccable.
The same goes for most of the soloists. Two are in fact native English speakers. John Elwes makes an assured and stylish Jonathan, clear and masculine in tone and often felicitous in his phrasing. He occasionally adds a little ornamentation. Then Gregory Reinhart, an American, sings Saul impressively, with dark, foreboding tone, steady and concentrated, and he uses the words intelligently. “As great Jehovah lives” is solemn and moving; in the recitatives with the Witch of Endor and Samuel his use of a more covered tone successfully conveys Saul’s troubled spirit. Johannes Kalpers in the various other tenor parts does particularly well with the fine music for the High Priest; note particularly the extraordinary and beautiful accompanied recitative, “By thee this universal frame” (Handel himself omitted it; here it is given as an appendix to the first CD).
The least successful of the soloists is the David. There are arguments for preferring a mezzo-soprano, as Handel often did; Matthias Koch’s voice is not sufficiently even or focused to make the music sound well and none of David’s airs make much impression. Michal is sung with considerable charm by Vasiljka Jezovsek; Simone Kermes’s Merab is not very secure or characterful in her first song but she produces a fine and shapely line in “Author of peace” in Part 2.
I have admired Neumann’s musicianly conducting before, principally in Mozart; and there is much to enjoy in this set, where he shows himself a skilful and generally stylish Handelian in the more sustained German manner of Handel interpretation. Ultimately, however, I think the Gardiner recording is to be preferred, not simply because of the uneven solo singing and the over-resonant acoustic here but above all for Gardiner’s livelier and more dramatic direction – his superior rhythmic vitality, and his readiness to make the most of the big moments in the score, notably the two great choruses that begin and end Part 2, whose full grandeur is realized in his version.'