Page 348 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year

17 April 2019

The Sixteen and Harry Christophers glorify

Handel in the Auditorium

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By Ramón del Buey Cañas , April 17, 2019

The opportunity to hear an oratory like Israel in Egyptnowadays it allows us to realize not only the radical
originality and the renewal of the compositional language that GF Handel supposed for the English
musical context of the 18th century, but also to experience a narrative mode that still surprises through the
sudden and masterful combination of registers, brilliance from solo parts and even humor. All this, yes, in
the good understanding that the group responsible for the interpretation will know how to highlight the
wealth that these pages treasure, a task that, without a doubt, requires a penetrating knowledge of the
Handelian style, but, also, a dramatic vis capable of assimilating the effect that the script of the libretto –in
this case, made up entirely of excerpts from the books of Exodus and the Psalms–it was to provoke the
listener: an attentive and emotional immersion in the literalness of the biblical text. Well: Harry
Christophers and The Sixteen , the group that he founded and heads for almost forty years, answered the
call with a reading of the meritorious and measured Handelian work in the best sense of the term.

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen

© National Center for Musical Diffusion (CNDM) | Elvira Megías
One of the most relevant virtues that Christophers and The Sixteen Choir & Orchestra displayed on the
stage of the Symphony Hall can be found in the excellent diction that, regardless of the form that the vocal
part took at any time - Aryan, double choir, chorus, duo, recitative - accompanied all the numbers that
make up the two sections of the second version of the oratory - the first configuration of Israel in Egypt ,
released in 1739, included a funeral Ode , which Handel replaced by the current overture, as well as a

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