Haunted Winterreise : Mark Padmore, Kristian Bezuidenhout fortepiano

Schubert's Winterreise is almost certainly the most performed Lieder cycle in the repertoire.  Thousands of performances and hundreds of recordings ! But Mark Padmore and Kristian Bezuidenhout's recording for Harmonia Mundi is proof of concept that the better the music the more it lends itself to re-discovery and endless revelation.  Padmore and Bezuidenhout present a very thoughtful Winterreise which, in its pristine lucidity, connects extraordinarily well to the spirit of the cycle. In a winter landscape, and in darkness, you may lose your path but snow reflects what light there is. Background sounds are muffled, but what you do hear is accentuated.  You may be cut off from the world, but you are enclosed within yourself.  Serious listeners know every note of Winterreise  but rarely experience it like this. This is an unusual Winterreise but so perceptive that it enhances our appreciation of the most familiar of all song cycles. The pianoforte may come as a surprise to audience attuned to modern performance practice, but it's leaner timbre works well with Winterreise, and especially in the critically important final song, "Der Leiermann".


The only real comparison is the iconic Christoph Prégardien's recording with Andreas Staier, released in 1997, still a classic. Winterreise devotees will need them both. Staier, one of the great fortepianists of our time, noted that, in Schubert's time, pianos were very different from  modern concert grands. Staier and Prégardien performed a great deal of Schubert together, developing an approach more sympathetic to the intimate, personal Liederabend aesthetic.  Schubert was himself a tenor, though of course the songs are performed in many different ways.  The main thing is to be receptive to interpretation and non-dogmatic. Since the timbre of the pianoforte  is more delicate,  the voice part needs to connect.   Like Prégardien, Padmore came from a choral background.  The English tenor style favours purity and clarity, yet also lends itself well to a kind of rarefied spirituality. Not all English tenors are "English tenors"; it's a particular style.  Like Ian Bostridge, Padmore can sing with an edge that intensifies darker undercurrents in meaning. In Winterreise, this is of the essence, for Winterreise is an inner psychological journey, expressed through stages describing physical landscape in almost allegorical terms. Even the destination remains a mystery. Thus the value of approaches which allude to levels in the music beyond text alone.

Fortepiano gives the introductory bars a tremble which suggests the nature of the chill that is to descend. The lower notes stride with purposeful definition.  Padmore's voice curves. "Fremd!", he sings, rolling the "r" so it flies forth.  The sharpness of his consonants in contrast with the ring of the vowels creates a tension which works well with meaning. The protagonist is entering unknown territory, suppressing his fears to journey on. For a moment, in "Der Lindenbaum", he can rest and reflect, and Padmore's voice grows more tender, and the fortepiano rocks gently.  But falling asleep under the supposedly narcotic scent of  linden blossom means death. In "Wasserflut", the vocal line rises and drops. Good phrasing , like "Fühlst du meine Tränen glühen, da ist meiner Liebsten Haus", Bezuidenhuit's fortepiano maintaining a steady pace.  In "Irrlicht", the  brightness of fortepiano and high tenor suggest the character of the will o' the wisp, flickering elusively, luring the unwary astray. In lines like "fühlst in der Still’ erst deinen Wurm, mit heißem Stich sich regen!" (in "Rast!"),  the word "Wurm" here, feels satanic, diverting the protagonist from his mission.

In "Der greise Kopf", Padmore sings the first lines with a lyricism that rings with flute-like grace,  emphasizing the deathly near-whisper of "Doch bald ist er hinweggetaut".  We are being prepared for the songs that follow, where the landscape becomes increasingly surreal, reflecting perhaps the psychic trauma the protagonist is facing.  This is where the unique quality of the English tenor style pays off, its archness suggesting anguish.  In "Die Krähe", a crow stalks the protagonist like a Doppelgänger : is it friend or foe ? In "Der stümische Morgen", Bezuidenhout's fortepiano growls ferociously, evoking the storm, both external and internal.  Padmore's voice rises defiantly, but the protagonist is up against almost supernatural forces.  Thus the turbulence in "Der Wegweiser" , pulling in different directions.  Even the graveyard offers no solace. In "Mut!",  notice the way Padmore marks the tremble in the word "herunter", while  Bezuidenhouit pounds as fiercely as a fortepiano can.  Now the protagonist challenges God himself. "Will kein Gott auf Erden sein, sind wir selber Götter!"  In early 19th century terms, this is almost blasphemy.  He looks up and sees three suns, a natural phenomenom that exists in certain climatic conditions, but he thinks they resemble three staring eyes.  Is the protagonist mad or visionary ? The hushed horror in Padmore's singing suggest both possibilities.

And thus to "Der Leiermann" the climax of the whole journey.  Bezuidenhout's fortepiano creates a sense of fragility, the notes sparkling the way light shines off heavy snow. Is this brightness an illusion, like the will o' the wisp ?  A large, strong piano might suggest an element of hope, but a fortepiano emphasizes vulnerability.  The colours in Padmore's voice turn pallid,  his tone dropping as if he's watching a ghost.  There are moments of light, where the voice rises like a flute, as opposed to the drone of a hurdy-gurdy. But note the steady deliberation, as if the protagonist was falling into step with the Leiermann's death march.  The last word "dreh’n?"  rings out like one last call into the void, and the fortepiano’s last notes shuffle, deflated.  Padmore and Bezuidenhout don't present an ordinary Winterreise, and some won't get it because it is different. But it does offers good insights, even in a market teeming with excellent performances.   

Padmore Lachner and Kynoch Brahms

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Monday's lunchtime concert at the Wigmore Hall features Mark Padmore and Kristian Bezuidenhout. He's singing Schumann songs and Liederkreis op 24, but the big treat will be Franz Lachner Lieder. Lachner may not be major league like Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Loewe, all his contemporaries, but he's interesting nonetheless. Peter Schreier recorded an entire disc of the songs of Conradin Kreutzer. It's not bad, but Kreutzer who? As Schreier said at the time, "You appreciate the peaks better when you know the valleys".

Everyone's heard of Lachner, who was displaced at Munich by Richard Wagner. Lachner was prolific, and his choral and chamber music have enjoyed a vogue for some time. The classic recording of Lachner's songs was made by Christoph Prégardien and Andreas Staier many years ago, so it's good to hear new versions. Angelika Kirschschlager  sang some recently, also at the Wigmore Hall.  Please see my earlier piece on Lachner and his Sängerfahrt op 33 cycle from which these songs come.

Padmore has chosen five Lachner songs. Die einsame Träne derives from Schubert: explicit musical special effects. Not a deep song but a good introduction to the composer because it shows his relationship to the master. Padmore follows this with songs that show more of Lachner's individuality. Listen out for Im Mai set by Schumann seven years later at the start of Dichterliebe. Lachner's lyrical circular patterns expand. Singing them must make your  heart soar. The fullness and promise of Spring. I love the piano part, which evokes a lyre - some shepherd playing in an Arcadian landscape? Great song.

Das Fischermädchen uses the same Heine text as Schubert used in Schwanengesang. What might Heine have further inspired in Schubert had Schubert not died too soon after discovering the poet? Schubert's Das Fischermädchen has powerfully erotic undercurrents. Lachner's is relatively prim, but pleasant. Padmore sang it at the Holywell Music Room in Oxford not long ago, bringing out its virtues.

Die Meerfrau is altogether fiercer stuff. Pounding ostinato, creating tension. Sirens are lovely but they lure men to their deaths. What's interesting about Lachner's approach is that he seems to  sympathize with the siren, as if he intuits that she can't help what she does. Sexuality runs through Lachner's Sängerfahrt, written as an engagement gift to his fiancée. It shows how unprudish Germans were even though they were chaste. Anxiety, fear of the unknown, but fundamentally healthy and positive. If Lachner lived today, he's probably be happily naked on the beach. Even more psychologically explicit is Ein Traumbild, which starts as a romantic wet dream, but as the incubus pulls the dreamer to her breast, he recoils in horror. Just in time, the cock crows, he's saved. Fabulously dramatic.

Get to the Wigmore Hall if you can at 1pm. If not, it's being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 live and will be online and on demand, with a repeat on Saturday (and another 7 days' listening after that. Padmore is planning a recording, which will be much welcome.  Hoho ! Listening to the nbroadcast I note the BBC p[rewsenters quoting me on Lachner. More important, though, there will be a broadcast of Angelike Kirschschlager's concert mentioned above, Monday performance on Three available online and on demand for 7 days. Read about it on the link in para 2

If in London, also get to the Purcell Room at 7.45 for Brahms Complete Violin and Piano Sonatas. Sholto Kynoch is one of the most gifted young song pianists around, but he's also established a strong reputation in chamber music. His Messiaen disc is very good indeed. He'll be playing at the Purcell Room with Alda Dizdari. The other night I was having a quick dinner at Le pain Q when I looked up at a South Bank publicity screen. There she was, fantastically glamorous  I've heard Kynoch and Kaoru Yamada many times, but not Dizdari. Since Kynoch works with partners for their musical abilities, not their looks, he and Dizdari should be interesting.
photo credit : Marco Borggreve

Franz Paul Lachner Sängerfahrt

Franz Paul Lachner (1803-1890) was six years younger than Schubert, and knew him personally. He's in the famous drawings of Schubert at the piano with tall, handsome Johann Vogel in pride of place. Prussian by birth, Lachner worked in the Lutheran Church in Vienna, hence his interest in liturgical music and big pieces for organ and choir, which the raffish Schubert crowd eschewed.

In 1836, Lachner landed a powerful job as conductor of the Hofoper in Munich. He had direct access to the King, and influence on everything musical in Bavaria. Lachner was to Munich what Mendelssohn was to Leipzig and Berlin. Nonetheless, today Lachner's relatively unknown, primarily because his music isn't nearly in the league of his major contemporaries. His problem, too, was that he wasn't Richard Wagner. When Wagner came on the scene, Lachner pointedly retired.

Nonetheless, Lachner is fascinating as a kind of missing link, suggesting what 19th century music might have been without great geniuses. His chamber music is fairly well known,  and there's now more interest in his songs. Angelika Kirchschlager is singing four songs from Lachner's Sängerfahrt op 33 on Friday 5th at the Wigmore Hall, where Mark Padmore is singing on December 6th (recording planned).

Highly recommended is the recording by Christoph Prégardien and Andreas Staier. Prégardien's brilliant because he understands how Lieder is a unique genre on its own terms, not lesser opera but a highly sophisticated blending of meaning and music. Superficial is not enough! On this recording Prégardien is youthful,  his voice pure and clear. Exquisite, because Staier's playing fortepiano, the sounds much lighter, closer to authentic period sound. This liberates the songs, bringing out their lyricism and elegance. Good performance makes a difference when music isn't absolute top quality  Avoid the disc on Oehms Classics (2004) , it's dire. Prégardien and Staier chose ten of the 16 songs in the set : get the score to appreciate how they fit the larger cycle.

Prégardien and Staier ware wise, too, to place Lachner in the context of early art song, deliberately avoiding comparison with Schubert and Schumann who set these same texts but in an altogether more inspired way. Instead, we hear Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, (1816), the first true Lieder cycle, and songs by Nikolas von Krufft (1779-1818), a Beethoven contemporary. Where Lachner's coming from, despite his love for Schubert, is an earlier, simpler tradition (not that Beethoven can be simple).

Lachner's Sängerfahrt dates from 1831-2, when Lachner was still in Vienna. Hence its delicate Romantic charms. A lovely fairy is bathing in a brook in Die badende Elfe. Bright appregiatos, and the intimacy of the word setting schimmerm in dem Mondenschien, rising upwards, enahnced by repetition rather than over emphasis.

Die Bergstimme is altogether more innovative . This could be proto-Schumann, in its dramatic intensity. It's remarkable how much virility Staier brings to this song : the Horseman and his horse are strong, looking forward to vigorous life. But the voice of the mountain spirit persistently whispers death and the man is lost. Der Stimm erwidert hohl, Im Grab wohl!

Another surprise. Im Mai uses the same text that Schumann would begin Dichterliebe with seven years later. The sprouting buds and branches of bloossom awaken in Lachner a wonderful circular melody. So beautiful - reminiscent to me of the melodies Beethoven and Mendelssohn used in order to evoke the countryside. Staier's fortepiano sounds like the lyre of some antique shepherd in an Arcadian landscape.

Almost violent ostinato leads into Die Meerfrau : notes of alarm? For the lady of the waters is a siren who seduces in order to kill. Tension rises as he lunges wildly at her victim. Lachner interprets the poem from the siren's point of view, as, I think, does Heine. Another siren in Der Traumbild. Prégardien's voice darkens sensually as he describes the vision who comes in his dreams, and the "arcadian" melody surfaces. But ostinati again indicate menace. The voice drops quietly, then leaps upward in horror as the vision presses him tightly to her breast. Then, suddenly Da kraeht die Hahn (the cock crows) und stumm entwich die marmorblasse (short silence) then a strangulated cry, Maid! In this song Prégardien negotites the transition of timbre and mood deftly - very impressive.

Since the cycle was written when Lachner's was courting his future bride, one wonders what these images of nudity and female entrapment meant. Possibly no more than slightly risqué flirtation. Missing from the Prégardien and Staier Lachner Sängerfahrt recording are some fairly straightforward songs, but some others are worth reviving, like Wonne und Schmerz (oddly lyrical) and Ihre Gestalt (contemplative).

Dichterliebe - Aung San Suu Kyi

In March, 1999, Michael Aris passed away. He was the husband of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese dissident, who is still under arrest in Myanmar on trumped-up charges.  Here they are in happier times, in Burma, in 1973.

Aris was an authority on Himalayan Buddhism at Oxford, so a memorial was held for him in the theatre at Wolfson College. His identical twin Anthony is also a Buddhist scholar, so it was uncanny to see him at the memorial, But in many ways, that's karma.

Karma too, in the form of the memorial, a performance of Dichterliebe, for it was Michael and Suu Kyi's favourite song cycle, and meant a great deal to them.  Schumann won Clara only after years of separation and struggle. Although Dichterliebe was written to celebrate their wedding, the cycle is infused with a sense of uncertainty, as if happiness might not last. Only a few years into their marriage, Schumann became ill and died. Michael and Suu Kyi at least enjoyed some years of happiness before destiny called..

So this Dichterliebe was very  special indeed, emotionally very powerful. Let no one say that extra-musical impressions don't count. They do. We would not be human if we responded to music without emotion. Even the most abstract sounds are processed by who we are. Not all emotion needs to be effusive, heart-on-sleeve, but it's there, because people are not machines.  Sometimes simplicity is all the more sincere.

Mark Padmore sang this Dichterliebe with Julius Drake at the piano. It was a wonderful performance. Previously I'd only heard him sing baroque, lute songs and  Henze's Six Songs From the Arabian (sorry, but it wasn't good) but this Dichterliebe had me almost in tears. It was an experience I'll never forget.

Oddly enough what sticks in my memory too is the strawberries we were served at the end of the meal. Incredibly ripe and fresh.  We ate that crop, but offshoots of the plants have been growing again, year after year. Suu Kyi won't taste strawberries again, in prison, far away in tropical Burma, and Michael is dead. But they must have enjoyed the first strawberries of summer in the past, just as they once enjoyed Dichterliebe. She has grown old, suffering for her people and her ideals. I don't know if she'll be vindicated in her lifetime, but her courage is a symbol, for Burma, and for people everywhere who stand up for what is good, against all odds. Please seemy other posts on Aung San Suu Kyi by following the labels below and support the Burma Campaign and spreade the word by giving the new boiography to your friends.    The book is REVIEWED HERE.

Mark Padmore sings Lachner Oxford

Once in a car park, I saw a nice car, old, but a performance car nonetheless, a lot like mine. Then up popped the owner, who looked familiar - Mark Padmore!

So it was good to hear him yesterday evening in the intimate surroundings of the Holywell Music Room in Oxford, which seats only 100 people, most of whom know each other as we've grown old together, since we've been coming to the Holywell for decades. That's what makes the Holywell ideal for Lieder. It's intimate, seats rising on three sides, so the small performance platform feels shielded, like it's in a womb. Perfect Liederabend mystique. The idea isn't showy flamboyance but private, personal communication.

Padmore sang Schumann and Franz Lachner, Simon Lepper (he of the hypnotic eyes) on piano, instead of the originally scheduled voice and pianoforte programme.

Franz Lachner? If you know Wagner, you've heard the name before. He was the big man in Munich music, pushed aside abruptly by Wagner and Hans von Bülow, the Young Turks of 1864. Partisan times, but Lachner steered clear of the turmoil.  He outlived Wagner, dying as late as 1890, but by then Wagner had changed music forever. Lachner's music seemed like a relic of the past. 

Yet Lachner represents a strain of music that goes right back to Beethoven.  One of his teachers was Beethoven's student. As a young man, Lachner was close to Schubert . he almost certainly knew the work of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and Loewe. Padmore's become interested in Lachner and plans to do a Lachner programme in the near future.

He mentioned coming across Christoph Prégardien's 1999 recording, "Lachner, Krufft, Beethoven: Lieder", with Andreas Staier on pianoforte.  It's the only one available because it would be hard to outclass Prégardien's combination of lithe purity and golden warmth. Because Staier's a brilliant fortepianist, totally at home in this style, it's a wonderful combination.

Padmore sang Lachner's op 33 Sängerfahrt, from the period when Schubert, too, was writing Heine settings. Yet what's striking is how Lachner's songs sound more Beethovenian than Schubert-like. Specifically, I could hear echoes of Beethoven's folk song settings - circular pseudo-dances, perhaps evocations of simple folk instruments translated through the genteel frame of urban, middle class sensibility.  Im Mai  in particular sounds Beethovenian,  nothing like Schumann's Im wunderschönen Mai.  Die Meerfrau and Das Fischermädchen flow into each other, both with lilting wave-like rhythms.

Ein Traumbild, though, is a nightmare, where a succubus starts to seduce the poet, who's saved by cocks crowing at dawn.   By Heine standards, this is no Allnächtlich in Traume but it suits Lachner who responds to the poem with Erlkönig melodrama. Lachner's no Schubert, but it's good enough.   More attractive, partly because it's perhaps more Lachner's own voice, is Die einsame Träne. A single tear flows down the poet's face,  reminding him of the past. But he's older and wiser now, and the pain is fading. In equilibrium, he can tell the lonely tear, zerfliesse jetzunder auch (go  away like the others). Lovely song, in the intimacy of the Holywell Music Room.

Padmore also sang Schumann: Liederkreis op 24 and Dichterliebe op 48. Lovely to hear, and much welcomed, but written about so often that I won't do so here. Lachner's the "news" item, and Padmore's forthcoming concerts. But tomorrow I'll write about a very special Dichterliebe Padmore sang in Oxford many years ago in a very unusual situation, a memorial for Aung San Suu Kyi's husband, Michael Aris.
 Photo credit : Marco Borggreve

Turn of the Screw - the movie Hickox

When this film of Britten 's The Turn of the Screw was screened on TV in 2004 it put a new twist on the tradition of ghost stories at Xmas. It's so atmospheric that it's not comfortable to watch, but it's full of striking insights.

The music Britten writes around the children leaps about with energy. just like Miles and Flora. Quint wants them because they're "proud, curious, agile,...like a jugglers mate". So this production makes a lot of the incessant movements - wilful, even contrary by turns, so when they have to be still it feels unnatural. They're first seen in a cemetery, solemnly carrying bouquets but first chance they get they're running over the graves, irrepressible.

Bly is a real stately home not a comic book palace. Children in Victorian times lived in sparsely furnished nurseries with natural light and little heating. The idea was that frugality instilled moral values. Scenes in this film are shot in cold, naturally lit rooms, contrasting simplicity with the decadent corruption Quint represents.

When the Governess exclaims "How beautiful it is!", she's not necessarily talking about the ballroom, but perhaps the grave classical elegance of the houses's structure. In this film, she's in the woods around the house, enjoying the beauty of nature. Indoor/outdoor contrasts reflect in Britten's music and themes in the narrative. In this film, the woods are a wonderful simile, because it's winter, with mists and fallen, decaying leaves. The trees are bare, their naked branches like sinister claws grasping at the sky. Significantly, Quint froze to death on an exposed path, and the ghosts appear first outside the building, gradually encroaching into the inner chambers. Perhaps that's why Miles sings the Malo song while fondling chestnuts and bird skulls in his schoolroom.

In the theatre, it's hard to do ghosts because they aren't solid. In this film, there are short, elusive shots - Miss Jessel lying half submerged like Ophelia, Quint face down in mud. But even more frightening are shots where they almost "don't" appear. In one of the scenes where the women and chidlren are indoors, the camera shoots through a window in the roof. The room is neat but paint is peeling off the window frame. And you see the shadow of a head.. Who would be up there on the roof looking in? Can't be human. Later when Quint and Miss Jessel come for the kids, they aren't seen directly - a hand, the hem of a skirt brushing against the floor. It's the children you see, hypnotized. When Miles sings "I am bad" in this production, perhaps he's speaking for Quint, mocking the Governess for saving the boy. In the ENO first production, Miles kissed her, which is shocking enough but completely different.

Film allows wider perspective. The scene where Miles plays the piano to distract the cooing women opens out, allowing Flora a moment to escape. She walks towards Miss Jessel in what seems at first solid ground, then revealed as the waters of the lake. Film also allows flashbacks where Miles's memories are shown. Seeing him play with his mother shows why he's so vulnerable. It also picks up on details in the text which indicate how much he does want to be saved, despite himself. Film also expands the Governess's long monologues, showing how much of the drama does exist in her mind. Telling details, such as the frame that shows her lying down, hair awry, just as Miss Jessel lay, drowned.

Lisa Milne is wonderful. As she approaches Bly her voice rasps with anxiety and fear: she doesn't lose control by any means, but adds frisson. Milne's Governess is highly strung and inexperienced. Maybe that's why the mysterious Guardian picked her? The relationship between the Governess and Guardian is yet another of the shadowings that infuse this opera and make it so powerful. Milne even manages to exude a kind of eager sensuality into the part, which works well. When she sings "In my labyrinthe" she twists and grimaces with the music. In the end, she sings the Malo song so poignantly that you realize what Miles meant by the apple tree and what it means in the Bible.

Mark Padmore's Quint is a smooth operator. He follows Britten's vocal quirks beautifully,, but he's more angel than demon. Gentlemanly elementals may exist but even plain Mrs Grose (Diana Montague) thinks Quint's a lowlife. This production, directed for TV by Katie Michell, allows Catrin Wyn Davies to develop Mis Jessel as a complete personality. Wyn Davies' rich, full voice makes you feel Miss Jessel was a nice person, truly "betrayed" rather than inherently evil. Caroline Wise makes Flora an independent-minded minx, stronger than Miles in some ways. What will become of her when she grows up, even away from Bly? Miles is Nicholas Kirby Johnson, nicely brooding and seductive.

The late Richard Hicox conducts the City of London Sinfonia. Good as the ENO orchestra was, the Sinfonia specialize in precisely defined music like this. Hickox's tempi are brisk. He captures the nervous tension in the music well, and its difficult switchback moods and colours. He's specially good where The Governess, Miles and Quint sing at cross-purposes. Watch this DVD
and see why I don't have much time for safe and bland in this opera.

Handel's Radical Terrorist Samson Prom 47 2009

This Prom could smash down the pillars of Handel-hate. This Samson made Handel seem completely modern. Why modern? He's been dead 250 years. This performance was so good that it brought out the sharp edge to Handel, so the drama felt totally up to the minute and vivid.

Frighteningly so, too, for some of the material is uncomfortably close to modern wounds. Given that the next Prom will feature the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, whose members are drawn from all sides of the conflict in the Middle East, it's disturbing to hear lines like "Gaza yet stands though all her sons are fallen" and "Sweep this race from this Land". There's no escaping the political nature of this oratorio. As has often been pointed out, Samson is the ultimate suicide bomber, who kills himself in order to kill as many of his enemies as possible, without regard to whether they're innocent bystanders or not. They're Philistines after all, not righteous like "us". There are virgins for the martyr in the next life. Intolerance stays the same whatever the flavour of the current beliefs.

Obviously Handel was writing about another time and place. There was no chance that a man of his era would have gone against the certainties of the Bible, however much they don't fit in with the more humanitarian values now associated with Jesus. Handel and his friends supported Church and State as institutions, whatever Jesus may have taught about gathering the little children, the powerless and so on. Handel's "Middle East" wasn't about Jews and non-Jews so much as about British society in his time. Handel's London was cutting-edge progressive compared with the rest of Europe. It was a place where new money and power held sway. The British beheaded their king long before the French even dreamed of having a revolution. Milton was the Karl Marx of Cromwell's armies. Hence the militant ethic, the self-righteousness. Of course they were humble before God, but God is whatever you make him out to be.

Hence the violence of the metaphors "The tempest of thy wrath.... in whirlwinds they pursue". And the particularly vindictive language Milton used to put down women. "Out! Hyena!" Samson cries at Dalila, who comes "sailing like a stately ship". Milton's misogyny had personal roots, but putting down others to soothe oneself is part of the extremist spirit. Samson, for example, is incensed because Dagon's followers party "free from sorrow, free from thrall, all blithe and gay, with sports and play" and drink lots of wine. Evidently, this is threatening to him. Samson's mad because he let himself be seduced. "Effeminacy held me yok'd". What would a psychiatrist make of it? "How cunningly the sorceress displays her own transgressions, to upbraid me mine!". Think about it.

Fortunately Handel didn't carry the same baggage. His Dalila, especially characterized by the winsome Susan Gritton, is supported by a beautiful solo violin, strengthened by cello and a band of women's voices. He's even fairly fair and even when it comes to the warring tribes. In the double choruses, both Israelites and Philistines sing the same words : the name of their Gods interchangeable. It's very subtle, in contrast with the unblinking self satisfaction of the Third Act.

Mark Padmore's Samson is an apotheosis. He creates Samson as a full personality, which is quite a feat. His Samson is a troubled beast in every sense. This Samson's strength comes from within. He's no WWF clown (note WWF wrestlers often have long hair). There's so much in this part that a lesser singer could coast, but Padmore brings an unusally white-hot intensity to his performance. Padmore's Samson is fuelled by buried conflicts and repressions. He spits venom, when he accuses Dalila of being a snake. Wonderful clipped phrasing, crackling with tension. This is how I like to hear Padmore, taking risks and engaging emotionally. He makes you understand how Samson comes to feel "some inward motions". He sings that last aria, "Thus when the sun from's watr'y bed" with quiet dignity. It's interesting how Handel writes it in a very different way to the blood-curdling defiance that's gone before.

Exceptionally crisp, clear textures in the playing from the English Concert led by Harry Bicket. This is baroque as "new music". Such freshness and vivacity, such sharpness of attack - worlds away from the soft-grained piety of mediocre performances that have saddled Handel with a bad image. Bicket shows just how cutting edge Samson must have felt once, when memories of the English Civil War were still fresh, and Europe was on the verge of The Age of Reason.

The funeral march in the Third Act showed how period instruments can pack a punch, played with this level of commitment. Listen to the natural horns and trumpets, the latter as long as trombones, but without a slide, the length extending the sound. The continuo is brisk, forthright, propelling forward movement. "Bring the laurels, bring the bays" sing the chorus, at a crisp walking pace. How vividly visual Handel's music can be! When Lucy Crowe appears to sing the famous "Let the bright Seraphim", you can almost see the angels, "and the cherubic host in tuneful choirs. " Close-up on television, you can see her eyes widen as she listen to the trumpets in the orchestra before she takes off into golden coloratura. "Let their celestial concerts all unite" sing the choir, "ever to sound his praise in endless blaze of light". This performance really did shine, especially against the darkness, the Eclipse, that went before.

Excellent singing throughout - Susan Gritton seductive and sympathetic, Iestyn Davies clear, Neal Davies full of character. Christopher Purves a solid Harapha.