Mackerras conducts Handel’s ‘Solomon’, 1966

Charles Mackerras came out as a real pioneer in 1965.  His highly ornamented approach to Mozart style shook the musical world with his production of The Marriage of Figaro for Sadlers Wells Opera.  In that year he also broadcast a landmark performance of Handel’s The Messiah.  This was historically informed and broke away from the bloated Victorian traditions of massed orchestras and choruses.  Vocal lines were again highly decorated with historically accurate Baroque cadenzas, trills and appoggiaturas.  Prominent parts were given to oboes and bassoons and a sharper musical style came with strict Baroque rhythmic practices, such as dotting notes.

For his performance of The Messiah and its subsequent 1966 recording Mackerras used the new edition of the work by Basi Lam.  Handel’s oratorio Solomon had never been performed at the Proms and Mackerras turned to Basil Lam’s edition for the performance given on August 3 1966.  This again challenged the notions of the Victorian era featuring a massive chorus and heavy instrumentation for brass and woodwind.  He provided for smaller, more agile chamber-sized musical forces that matched the specific instrumentation stipulated by Handel. He also returned to the historically accurate basso continuo with the harpsichord replacing the piano as accompaniment.

Lam also took the pruning  knife to the score of Solomon, reducing  its massive, three-hour length to a more dramatically focused concert length.

Handel became one of Charles Mackerras’s signature composers, with productions of Xerxes and Julius Caesar at English National Opera, Semele at the Royal Opera as well as recordings of The Messiah and Israel in Egypt with the English Chamber Orchestra. His early versions of Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music were also ground-breaking. This performance of Solomon is, therefore, a landmark, pointing to a new way of performing Baroque music that came to be generally adopted in the following decades.

Judging by the rapturous applause at the end of the concert, this new, agile, dramatic approach found its mark with the audience.

Georg Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759)

Solomon

Track 1: Introduction

Track 2: Act 1

Track 3: Act 2

Track 4: Act 3

Track 5: Applause and closing announcement

This recording was taken from a relay of the concert given on August 3 1966 at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall

The recording was donated to Music Preserved by Nigel Simeone