Handel’s magnificent oratorio Saul takes the listener on a musical roller-coaster with portrayals of Saul’s jealous rages, David’s soothing harp music, Jonathan’s conflicted loyalties, the other-worldly sounds of the Witch of Endor and the Ghost of Samuel. Then there’s the solemnity of the Death March for Saul and Jonathan.
Conductor: David Gostick.
Ada Witczyk will be leading this concert.
Charlotte Bowden soprano
Joseph Bolger countertenor
Kieran White tenor
Jamie Woollard bass
Tickets: adults £20, children/adults £5. Tickets from the PCU website or at the door.
Organisers: The Consort of Twelve and Portsmouth Choral Union
The Consort of Twelve is an ensemble of musicians who specialise in the performance of Baroque music using the styles, techniques and instruments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
There are few Biblical characters more sharply drawn than Saul, the unsuspecting first king of the united monarchy of Israel and Judah, a loving pater familias at times and a fratricidal maniac at others. The Book of First Samuel becomes a page-turner from the moment Saul is introduced as “the handsomest man in Israel, standing head and shoulders above the rest” to his ignominious death in battle, a failed suicide finished off by an enemy solder. The story of the rise and fall of Saul is fraught with drama: violence, madness, mayhem, and sorcery as well as jealousy, love, and the most undeniable description of bisexual devotion to be found in the Hebrew Bible.
