NOTHING crowns the year like the annual, exhilarating Eve of Christmas Eve performance of Handel's Messiah by the choir Polyphony and the baroque orchestra Canzona under Stephen Layton. Last night, Mr Layton announced that two of the singers were ill and could not perform. Fortunately, they were only the soloists. The chorus was intact - vitality made flesh. They sang He Hath Turned faster than ever. They spat out If He Delight with a defiant staccato and delivered the final fugal Amen with the authority of the angelic host.
John Mark Ainsley replaced Ian Bostridge and David Wilson-Johnson replaced Michael George. Anyone sceptical that this was an improvement did not remain so. Mr Ainsley soothed all the panic of Advent with his Comfort Ye. If he ornamented, he did so unhurriedly. His Thy Rebuke fashioned regret for all the inevitable failures of man. He, more than any, has a feeling for the theatricality of oratorio. The chorus tenors looked on enviously.
Mr Wilson-Johnson's awesome fury in Why Do The Nations? made the hall tremble. Counter-tenor Robin Blaze's rare, rich low register lent him the maturity his looks deny. Soprano Emma Kirkby caused the evening to be reflective whenever she appeared.
Layton conducted with his customary precision. The chorus were willing puppets. Canzona, her trumpets immaculate, responded to every gesture. The dramatic silences, the prompt succession of numbers, the powerful slowing of the Hallelujah Chorus and the extraordinary suspension of the penultimate bar of All We Like Sheep all conspired to make this great, familiar brocade a fresh masterpiece.