Handel: Messiah

Once again there was a warm welcome at the ticket desk and a full house for Thornbury Choral’s
performance of Messiah. It’s wonderful that Thornbury has a large (over 80 singers) choir that
welcomes all. The choir has now established St Mary’s as its regular performance space and has
made a virtue out of necessity. The split sopranos and altos in the side aisles provide not only a real
stereo affect but the width of the choir layout encourages a full surround sound best appreciated
from further back in the nave – It’s a really good sound.

Steven Kings had chosen spritely tempos and the choir delivered. This is a work that most will have
sung many times and their familiarity with the music showed. Confident entries and plenty of
looking up and communicating the text. The opening (for the chorus) “And the Glory” had good
balance, good tempo and good control. “Unto us” was delivered with abundant energy and “Glory
to God” had a glorious entry. I was particularly impressed by the Adagio “iniquity of us all” at the
end of “We Like Sheep” and the exciting, agitated “He Trusted in God”.

The choir showed no sign of what must have been a long day’s rehearsal by maintaining their energy
and concentration to the end. “Worthy is the Lamb” had a confident opening and the final “Amen”
was managed with an excellent build-up of tension. A concert to be proud of and the audience
agreed with prolonged applause.