October 1997

Elijah, Op. 70 (1846) - Bryn Terfel (baritone); Renée Fleming (soprano); Patricia Bardon (contralto); John Mark Ainsley (tenor); Edinburgh Festival Chorus; Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment/Paul Daniel - Decca 455 688-2 - two discs 130:53 DDD

It's obvious from the gruesomely grease-painted cover photograph, in which Bryn Terfel appears to be auditioning for a bit-part in Life of Brian, that this admirable new recording of Elijah is very much intended as a showcase for the young Welsh baritone, and in many ways it is.

I'm personally delighted, though, to note that the equally youthful Paul Daniel has finally been entrusted by a record company with the major project he deserves. He brings to this Elijah all the qualities that have made him such a popular success at Opera North in Leeds: vigor, dynamism, and an instinctively theatrical grasp of the overall shape and architecture of the work in hand. He plays a leading part in making this new Elijah move and meld.

And what of Terfel himself? Mendelssohn conceived his prophet as being "energetic and zealous, but also stern, wrathful and gloomy", and he would surely have been delighted by the extent to which Terfel's interpretation brings these features strongly and uncompromisingly to the fore. Thus his taunting of the Prophets of Baal in Part 1 is properly defiant, and he burns his way through the Handelian pyrotechnics of "Is not His word like a fire" with a fundamentalist fervor which brooks no argument at all.

There is introspection and darkness too, nowhere more notably than in a black and desperate rendering of the aria "It is enough!" from Part 2.

Reservations? Yes, a few. Terfel has an outstanding mezza voce in his armory, and occasionally uses it when something less obviously "stage-managed" would do, and be more simply eloquent. Again, his delivery sometimes strikes me as a mite too operatically-inclined, where in oratorio a slightly more temperate and even style of vocal declamation can pay richer dividends. But his assumption is powerfully impressive overall.

More lastingly vexatious is the choir's tendency to light unexpectedly on particular sections of the text. Why, for instance, do they place such a distractingly large emphasis on the words "the third and the fourth generation" in "Yet doth the Lord see it not"? These irritating "tics" apart, they sing with consistent warmth, and often very dramatically too. The other soloists are more than adequate, without being specially distinctive.

No matter: Terfel's many followers will be more than happy with his contributions alone. And so am I: they will bring a new audience to a great, and still greatly underrated work. An excellent performance from Bryn Terfel, and a fine all-round version of the work.

- Terry Blain