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Messiah 2012 Review

22 December 2012

*****

Kate Molleson - The Guardian

The Dunedin Consort's celebrated Messiah seems to get better every year. Not more honed or polished, necessarily, but more daring, more theatrical and even more sensual. With a period-instrument band of 15 and a chorus of just 12 singers – and that included the soloists – this was as intimate a take on Handel's oratorio as you're likely to get. But the effect is far from whispered or delicate. Such a stripped-down aesthetic means there's nowhere to hide, no buffers for shaky ensemble or intonation. But that's not a problem, either: the crisp, robust responses from players and singers make a long evening fly by. Above all, Dunedin's director, John Butt, recognises the operatic quality of Handel's writing. The opening Sinfony was a long-bowed and luscious scene-setter. Comfort Ye was sultry, For Unto Us was cheekily straight, He Was Despised gave quiet space to its anguish, and in many of the triple-time numbers – And the Glory of the Lord, The Trumpet Shall Sound – Butt really tugged at the downbeat to give it a swinging feel. His knack of interlocking consecutive movements into one long sweep makes for gripping momentum. "Choruses," he reasons in his programme note, "such as And the Glory of the Lord and And He Shall Purify, follow on directly from the preceding arias, just as the conjunction 'and' would imply in the biblical texts concerned." In some Messiahs you might be tempted to let your mind wander between the big tunes; here's there no option but to keep up.

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Battle - Review

27 November 2012

Dunedin Consort, John Butt (director), Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 23.11.2012 (SRT)
 
Seen & Heard International - Simon Thomson - 24th November 2012
 
J. S. Bach: Cantata 19 “Es erhub sich ein Streit”
Violin Concerto in E BWV 1042
Cantata 149 “Man singet mit Freuden vom Sieg”
Zelenka: Laudate Pueri Dominum
 
Soloists:
Joanne Lunn:  Soprano
Robin Blaze:  Countertenor
James Gilchrist:  Tenor
Matthew Brook:  Bass
Cecilia Bernardini:  Solo violin

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St John Passion – review

18 September 2012

The Guardian

17th September 2012

Professor John Butt is of that rare breed: a music academic who is also a genuinely thrilling performer. As one of the world's foremost Bach scholars, he brings vigorous insight to the period ensemble he conducts from the harpsichord, the Edinburgh-based Dunedin Consort. But there's flamboyancy and pathos in his musicianship, too, that always cuts to the heart of a work's emotional drama.

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Lammermuir Festival: Dunedin Consort's St John Passion - review

17 September 2012

In addition to perfect intonation and balance in choral mode, the singers were outstanding soloists. Bass Robert Davies [...] sang the role of Pilate with rich-voiced gravitas. Soprano Joanne Lunn and alto Alex Gibson were extremely impressive – the latter in a time-stopping rendition of “Es ist vollbracht”. Two members of the cast stood out for me and, judging from audience reaction, for the majority of those present. Bass Matthew Brook, in the role of Christ, injected a note of unshrinking defiance into his exchanges with Pilate. The dramatic complexities of the trial scene, where an individual comes up against the harsh power of the (occupied) state egged on by a volatile populace, had an almost operatic feel.

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St John Passion, St Mary's Church, Haddington - Review

17 September 2012

Herald Scotland - Keith Bruce

17th September 2012
 
J S Bach's pithier Passion was given a broad and expansive reading by John Butt and the Dunedin Consort for the opening concert of this year's Lammermuir Festival in East Lothian.   Here were hints of what is to come in the forthcoming "authentic" presentation of the same work in recorded form next year.
 
In a sense, authenticity is a silly concept now.  Butt's skill is in making every note count, so branding the presentation of the work with spare forces (and it would be impossible, surely, to do Bach justice with fewer than eight singers and 14 players) in a wonderful old kirk as merely "faithful"is to tell only part of the story.

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John Passion - Lammermuir 2012 - Review

17 September 2012

By David Kettle

Scotsman 17th September 2012

Kicking off this year’s Lammermuir Festival with Bach’s St John Passion was always going to be something of a statement, but it was even more of a dramatic one in John Butt’s vivid performance with his period-instrument Dunedin Consort.

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Review: Dunedin Consort - Edinburgh Queen’s Hall

09 February 2012

The Scotsman - 9th February 2012

Carol Main

In No 6, it was the violas’ night, as the impressively well-matched lyricism of Jane Rogers and Alfonso Leal del Ojo came into its own with joyous flow.

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Dunedin Consort, Edinburgh Queen’s Hall

09 January 2012

Scotsman - 9th Jan 2012

Kenneth Walton 

The Dunedin Consort is bringing all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos to life in a series of three concerts over the coming months in Edinburgh and Perth.
 
The first of the Edinburgh concerts established the template for the series, which sees each programme combine two of the famous concerti grossi with two Bach Cantatas.
 
On Friday, Dunedin’s resident Bach guru, John Butt, directed the third and fifth, revealing in the latter – with its fiendish and, for its time, shockingly unorthodox cadenza – his own demonic virtuosity on the harpsichord. Butt’s feverish spontaneity imbued it – and subsequently the entire concerto – with an edge-of-the-seat thrill factor that never once overstepped stylistic bounds.

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Messiah review. Scotsman

22 December 2011

MESSIAHS come in all shapes and sizes. And before a bolt of lightning is angled in my direction, let me make it clear that I am referring to Handel’s famous oratorio. There are fat ones and skinny ones, slick ones and pedantic ones, polished professional ones and well-meaning amateur ones. But for me, the approach taken by the Dunedin Consort and Players on Tuesday – the same compact forces that Handel favoured in his later years – would be the chosen one.

Ken Walton. Scotsman. 22nd December 2011.

Full Review

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Dixit Dominus Review

29 September 2011

SCOTSMAN, 29th September 2011

By Kelly Apter

http://news.scotsman.com/arts/Classical-review-Dunedin-Consort-and.6843662.jp
 
BEFORE this closing concert of the Lammermuir Festival, the organisers proudly announced that this year's event has been a resounding success, and that they will be doing it all over again next year. That a new festival can flourish in such times of economic austerity is nothing short of remarkable, but the "smiles on people's faces as they left the concerts" have apparently convinced Hugh Macdonald and James Waters that Lammermuir has a place in the busy festival market.
 
Those smiles continued on Sunday night, when the Dunedin Consort and Players delivered a sumptuous programme of Bach and Handel. Dunedin closed last year's Lammermuir Festival, and although that's only two years in a row, it already feels like a comfortable tradition.
 
Director John Butt is a man whose exuberance knows no bounds; with one hand on the organ or harpsichord, the other expressively pulls the very best out of these consummate singers and players. Particular praise goes to the passionate playing of Dutch violinist Cecilia Bernardini (especially during Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D minor) and the pure and engaging voices of Edinburgh-born soprano Susan Hamilton and Austrian alto Margot Oitzinger.
 
But essentially this was a group effort, and the "smiles" Macdonald and Waters spoke of came most readily when the musicians and singers united in Handel's fiendishly difficult Dixit Dominus. A work which gave solo vocalists a chance to shine, and made beautiful use of St Mary's resonant acoustics as ten perfectly matched voices came together in glorious harmony.

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