Classical review: RSNO: Elijah, Glasgow

How strange to hear Mendelssohn’s Elijah in German. Yet how wonderfully that clean, clipped language helps cleanse the familiar English translation, created – and stubbornly maintained ever since – for the oratorio’s mid-19th century Birmingham premiere, of its sentimental Victorian fatuousness.

RSNO: Elijah - Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

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No, this was a performance by the RSNO, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, which dispelled the cobwebs and really got to grips with what Mendelssohn surely intended – a seething dramatic sweep that welded the musical elements cohesively together, sensitised the fiery narrative, and simply held us in thrall from start to finish.

Davis had a crack solo team on his side, the one relative unknown – German baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann – a towering presence as Elijah, investing genuine personality and rich, emotive vocal strength into his compelling portrayal. Tenor Barry Banks was every bit as impressive, negotiating the topmost registers with effortless, pinpoint panache.

The female coupling of soprano Lisa Milne, softly pure and affectionate, and mezzosoprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers, a burnished silken quality, completed a solo ensemble that was of one mind, to raise the stakes and feed this interpretation with a quasi-operatic sense of theatre.

Davis gleaned the same incisive response from the RSNO Chorus, one particular poignant moment being the punchy unsentimental offstage singing of Lift Thine eyes by the RSNO Junior Chorus.

But this was a team performance par excellence, including Alice Yeoman’s brief luminescent portrayal of the Youth, and an RSNO responding warmly and vividly to Davis’s easeful but alert leadership.