Gli Angeli Genève

Stephan MacLeod basse et direction
Sophie Junker soprano
William Shelton alto
Thomas Hobbs ténor

Georg Friedrich Handel
Messiah

Handel’s Messiah is, for very good reason, one of the most beautiful and famous works in Western music, as well as the most widely performed and sung. Gli Angeli Genève plans to perform it every December at the Victoria Hall, and even twice this season, with a wonderful line-up of vocal soloists led by Sandrine Piau. As musicians, we always return with a sense of fascination, wondering how such a succession of hit pieces, and a libretto made up of such disparate extracts from the first English translations of the Bible, can come together to form such a perfect, intangible whole. It may be tempting to reduce the work to the best-known Hallelujah in history or to a few of the most sung arias and choruses in the world, but the secret of the eternal success of the Oratorio of oratorios, of the King of kings, lies in the exceptional quality of its structure, in the intelligence with which Jenkins and Handel manage to recount the whole life of Christ in just 140 minutes, and in the synthesis thus achieved of an entire liturgical year of praise and religious hymns.

The concerts are preceded by a presentation by Mr Philippe Albèra.