The prospect of a performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah hasn't always been one to set the adrenalin flowing. The work has had to carry the reputation of being the epitome of the Victorian oratorio: first performed at the Birmingham Festival in 1846, and then repeated no less than four times in London the following spring, its overwhelming success and patronage by Queen Victoria herself encouraged several generations of English composers to write a plethora of more or less pale imitations on similar biblical subjects.
Mendelssohn himself regarded it as his finest achievement, a judgment that is hard to square with the stolid, over-reverential performances that so many English choral societies have been presenting in an unchanging style for more than a century.
But the impact of historically aware performances and period instruments has changed our perceptions considerably; the music of Elijah may never have the sheer energy and welter of invention of Mendelssohn's teenage masterpieces, but it has its own rugged grandeur, lyrical beauty and a dramatic sweep whose operatic origins are only thinly disguised.
Last night's prom didn't have the benefit of a period band but the modern instruments of the London Philharmonic. The occasion did have, however, a different kind of authenticity; the conductor was Kurt Masur, and no one who has worked with Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for as long as he did could fail to have a special feeling for Mendelssohn, whose years in charge of that very orchestra were some of the most important in the development of orchestral performance in the 19th century. Certainly Masur's approach had nothing of the sentimental or sanctimonious about it; even though the performance used the English translation of the German text made for the premiere, this was Elijah personified as the red-in-tooth-and-claw prophet of Old Testament scriptures and not as some romanticised super-hero.
The drama was there both in Alastair Miles's singing of the title role, firm-toned with a real unswerving authoritative edge to his voice, and in the urgent choruses, as delivered by the Philharmonia and LPO choirs.
Masur gave every number cogency and definition; even the most celebrated and over familiar aria of all, Oh rest in the Lord, had a chaste simplicity as the soprano, Janice Watson, presented it. The other principal soloists - mezzo Karen Cargill and tenor Kim Begley - were equally careful to avoid any lapses into saccharine commonplaces; Mendelssohn may never have written a successful opera, but he certainly peopled his oratorios with fully three-dimensional characters.
The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column, Saturday September 7 2002
In the Prom review above, the "over familiar" aria in Mendelssohn's Elijah that we said was sung by the soprano Janice Watson was in fact sung by the mezzo Karen Cargill. Apologies to both for that.
