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Legend: Handel Manuel (left, file photo) in whose memory the concert was organised.

The evening began, as concerts by the Handel Manuel Chorus often do, with a modest instrumental prelude: Jean-Baptiste Loeillet’s (1688-1720), Sonata in e minor for two flutes and continuo, with Damayanthi Santwan accompanying flautists Sunder Schaffter and S. Balakrishnan.

This was a curious opening to the concert in that it was a small scale piece originally for house performance, and in the context of this show, with many hundreds of people in attendance, it seemed too modest an opening item. Yet the piece was delightful, and especially Santwan’s accompaniment was effortless and sensitive.

Handel Manuel’s namesake was the great baroque composer George Frederick Handel. His Alleluia from the oratorio Deborah was the next item in the programme. Altogether, four of that evening’s pieces were chosen from among his music. Each concluded a major section of its respective oratorio and was suitably grand. The choir was in fine form for all of these pieces, but one would have wished that articulation of certain passages had been less forced. That did not detract, however, from the over all feeling of joy and triumph all these pieces conveyed.

Kirke Mechem’s ‘Alleluia, Amen,’ from ‘Three Motets,’ OP 57 No 2 followed. Not a well-known composer even in his native United States, Mechem’s ‘Alleluia, Amen’ was a hauntingly beautiful and contemplative setting of these words (Alleluia means “praise God,” and Amen means “So-be-it.”) There are ways in which this may have been the most difficult piece on the programme, but the choir sang it with great feeling, which allowed its beauty to shine through.

W.A.Mozart (1756-1791) Alleluia from ‘Exultate Jubilate,’ K. 165, was originally arranged for clarionet and piano — Sunder Schaffter, clarionet, and Handel Manuel, piano. Sunder Schaffter is the surviving brother of Handel Manuel, and offered this arrangement of Mozart’s well known aria. The accompaniment which had been recorded decades ago was an especially touching monument to the evening’s honouree. The quality of the recording, given its age, was not bad, and in fact was good enough to remind us of what a fine pianist Handel Manuel was.

Another American composer, Randall Thompson, was represented by his Alleluia. Commissioned for the inaugural ceremony for the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in 1940, this anthem has become the most popular piece in the U.S. when high ceremony is required.

Along with the Mechem piece, the Handel Manuel Chorus did this piece with great dedication. Over its six-minute span, great demands were made on the choir’s attention and tuning, and they met this challenge valiantly.

Even Beethoven was represented in the programme, with his Hallelujah, from the oratorio, ‘The Mount of Olives.’ This too is a piece of music that is still often used on occasions where grand and sweeping gestures are required.

The choir clearly enjoyed singing it, and again the accompaniment by Damayanthi Santwan was flawless in its execution and sensitivity. As a successor to Handel Manuel, we have no finer keyboardist in the city.

The concert made another pause with Ferdinand Carulli’s Sonata in A major. Alahayu V’Naiud, was the guitar soloist.

Franz Schubert was represented by his Amen from one of his two settings of the Stabat Mater.

A concert whose theme was Hallelujah could hardly omit the most famous setting of all of that word — G.F.Handel’s ‘Hallelujah’ from the Oratorio Messiah. Again this is a piece that the Handel Manuel Chorus knows well and clearly enjoyed singing for us.

The audience dutifully stood up for this chorus, which was not the end of the programme. That place was reserved for the Amen from the same oratorio, and provided a grand and at the same time peaceful ending to a fine evening.

Emmanuel Methodist Church must be commended for offering its facilities for the Handel Manuel Chorus to give us this performance. Too often, churches in this city, which are obvious places for public performance, see musical performances as a burden, and at best as a money-making opportunity, failing to see it as their own offering to the community of something uplifting.

Even volunteer musical groups such as the Handel Manuel Chorus and many others like it are charged for the ‘privilege’ of rehearsing in churches, despite the minimal cost to any church of being such a host.

It is to Emmanuel Methodist Church’s very great credit that they had no such small-mindedness or meanness of spirit in giving the gift of this most enjoyable performance to the general public.

May they continue to do so, and similar places follow their good example!

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