Zaphnath!

Joseph, the Yings, and the Kuijkens

by Lloyd Schwartz

When you consider that one of Handel's most memorable duets is to the words "Happy, happy, happy we" and that one of his most sublime choruses is "Wretched lovers, quit your dream./Behold the monster Polypheme" (both from Acis and Galatea), it's hard to blame the thorough neglect of the "sacred drama" Joseph and His Brethren entirely on the Reverend James Miller's clumsy libretto. In fact, it's hard to find any reason. For as Donald Teeters and the Boston Cecilia proved in their 15th major Handel presentation, Joseph, from the very height of Handel's career, has hardly a dull note in its more than three hours of ravishing music.

This was, evidently, only the third American performance (the first was by the Newburyport Choral Society in 1972). The first recording, by the King's Consort, appeared just last year. Teeters warns us in his program note that Joseph might be hard for a modern audience to follow since key details of the Biblical story are omitted and Miller's subtext was local politics (Joseph as the image of an ideal leader in contrast to the corrupt and recently defeated prime minister, Robert Walpole). Yet the episodes themselves, dealing with Joseph's rise to power in Egypt under the name Zaphnath (his interpretation of Pharaoh's dream of seven skinny cows devouring seven fat ones rescues Egypt from famine) and his later revenge against his jealous brothers for selling him into slavery and telling their father that he was dead, are quite lucid (especially with a few footnotes filling in the plot lacunae).

Who cares about such verbal infelicities as "I fear this stranger/Has trespass'd on my unsuspecting bosom" or "prostrate multitudes that do him honours/Obstruct his passage through the streets of Memphis" (maybe Joseph as Elvis isn't such a bad analogy) when the music is so instantly compelling? The four-part overture begins in melancholy solemnity -- a slow deconstruction of a fanfare, with the oboe pretending to be a trumpet. The story proper opens with a dark orchestral tread leading us downward into the prison where Joseph is languishing after being falsely accused of sexual harassment by Potiphar's lecherous wife.

Joseph's accompanied recitative launches the oratorio with urgent immediacy, especially if it's delivered by a countertenor as magnificent as Jeffrey Gall, whose voice was in its fullest, ripest flowering: creamy and radiant, dazzling in coloratura, every word audible, every emotion -- every conflicting emotion -- felt. Gall's Joseph was righteous (not just self-righteous) and moral, loving (he gets married early in this oratorio) and wise, yet obsessed by the need to teach his brothers a lesson, and then pained by the pain his revenge causes them. In short, he was Handel's Joseph -- a complete characterization to join his unforgettable Julius Caesar, Orlando, and David (in Saul) in the now legendary Peter Sellars/Craig Smith productions. His aria of yearning nostalgia for a humble pastoral life away from "courtly craft" and "public strife" (which Handel represents in glittering knots of trills and roulades), sung in a halo of organ chords (Michael Beattie) and fluttering strings, is one of Handel's most delicious inventions.

The libretto invents a consort for Joseph, Asenath (only a name in the Bible), the conventionally devoted wife who later fears Joseph's mysterious obsession might be with another woman. For Handel she's the voice of lyricism and sentiment, with seven (count 'em!) beautiful but long and ferociously difficult coloratura da capo arias. Perhaps that's the real reason for so few revivals. Frankly, cutting one or two wouldn't be a crime. Soprano Sharon Baker flagged a little by the last one. Who wouldn't? But her sincerity, remarkable technical command, rhythmic and vocal sparkle, clear diction, and sheer stamina were positively heroic. Her love duet with Gall (with two flutes) was another gem.

The most complex character in Joseph is actually brother Simeon, whom Joseph holds captive in Egypt until the other brothers return with the youngest, Benjamin. Simeon is earnest and forthright, yet tormented by his guilt over the betrayal of Joseph. The second act includes a prison scene for Simeon that, with similar dark growls from the strings, parallels Joseph's opening prison scene. Tenor William Hite sang with eloquent conviction. The scene in which Joseph asks Simeon about his father and "late" brother is one of the tightest, most dramatic in Handel. Gall and Hite captured both its tension and its pathos.

Bass Mark P. Risinger made a noble Pharaoh and a sturdy brother Reuben. The endearing mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal was both Phanor, Joseph's right-hand man, and a high priest, singing some difficult low-lying coloratura with warmth and vivid personality. As young Benjamin, soprano Noel Brisson sang with a vibratoless "choirboy" voice. Perhaps a real choirboy (Handel used one) might have sung with greater accuracy. Still, she was a touching presence, and the Joseph/Benjamin duet was deeply affecting.

Joseph and His Brethren turns out to be one of Handel's great choral works, from the hushed first-act Egyptian prayer and exuberant toast ("Zaphnath rules!" -- that ought to be a bumper sticker) to the final jubilant "Alleluia." The second act ends with a prayer by the Brethren ("O God, who in thy heav'nly hand") that begins in repressed fervor and then, with its repeated descending chromatic lines in the strings, turns into a fugal chant of heartbreaking intensity. It's one of the most sublime utterances in Handel.

The Cecilia chorus sang with fire and gusto, inspired by the stellar period-instrument orchestra: concertmaster Kinloch Earle and principal second violin Jane Starkman, Stephen Hammer on oboe, Fred Holmgren leading the three-trumpet section, Wendy Rolfe and Naomi Lion on traverso flutes, John Grimes on timpani, and Shannon Natale (cello) and Suzanne Cleverdon (harpsichord), with Anne Trout (bass), the splendid continuo players. Teeters's forceful control over the entire score and his unusually uninhibited energy level caught the spirit of Handel's dramatic dynamic contrasts. His passionate advocacy animated this neglected masterpiece. This performance was a wonderful gift to us -- and to Handel.

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The much praised, many-prized Ying Quartet presented a program of great chamber music in their first recital at Jordan Hall. The four siblings -- Timothy and Janet (violins), Phillip (viola), and David (cello) -- have been performing together for nine years and have a remarkable unanimity of sound, mainly a consistently light tone that keeps a certain delicacy even when the playing gets raucous. Their great claim to fame is their two-year NEA residency in a small Iowa farm town, where farmers and business people discovered how important classical music was to them.

The Yings played Mozart's exquisite Dissonant Quartet in C; Jan´cek's extraordinary Second Quartet (Intimate Letters), about whose origin -- in the elder composer's desperate infatuation with a woman 40 years younger and married -- spokesperson Phillip Ying chatted jovially; and the Brahms Piano Quintet, with 19-year-old piano virtuoso Tian Ying (a disciple of Russell Sherman, whose possible relationship to the four string players Phillip also speculated amusingly upon).

There's a lot of talent here. Tian Ying is a full-bodied player who fills the music. He had to make himself conform to the thinner tone of the strings. Individually, the strings were attractive and appealing. The "dissonant" slow opening of the Mozart had a quiet poignance. But I was increasingly struck by how little the Yings responded to one another. String quartets are a kind of conversation -- I was hoping the intimacy of a family ensemble would necessitate intimacy in the playing. After listening to a good deal of willful phrasing, overemphasis, and extended pausing, I started to lose the bigger picture: the longer line, the shape of a movement, the quality that makes Mozart different from Janácek or Brahms. The Allegro finale of the Janácek made the Yings scramble a bit, and more and more the concert itself sounded like a scramble, with little focus on or engagement with the larger issues, structures, or feelings.

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An element of musical monotony clouded another "family" concert -- by the Kuijken Trio at Faneuil Hall the night of the miserable snowstorm. Quincy Market was surrounded by a slough of slush. "I admire your courage," traverso flutist Barthold Kuijken told the crowd. It was comforting to be in the old hall on just such a night, to listen to 18th-century French chamber music played by some of the world's best-loved masters of early music. The Trio -- Barthold and his older brother, the gambist Wieland Kuijken, and their longtime collaborator, the Belgian harpsichordist Robert Kohnen -- was last in Boston as three-quarters of the Kuijken Quartet (with violinist brother Sigiswald, who has become an important Haydn conductor) in 1990.

The star turn was by Wieland, the dark-browed gambist, in a seven-movement suite of mostly solemn music chosen from Marin Marais's Deuxième livre (1701). The last-movement "Tombeau de Monsr. Lully" is a grief-stricken memorial for the great composer. Wieland Kuijken shattered his own elegant, resonant tone with a series of anguished, stabbing low chords, which return later, after failed attempts to moved up the scale and before we settle into the final quietude of sorrow. The most substantial music was the Marais and the concluding Rameau suite, with its contrasting tributes to other composers: the flamboyant "La Forqueray" movement, the tender "La Cupis," and the surprising melodic line of "La Marais" (dedicated to Marin's eldest son).

Flutist Barthold played Pied Piper in some "come follow me and we'll skip away" movements from a Leclair D-major trio sonata and a C-major sonata. He has an impressive battery of technical skills and a sweet but unvaried tone (let's be grateful for Leclair's brief excursions into the chromatic). The trills, echo-effects, and other twittering charms of Couperin's Premier concert royal, written to cheer up Louis XIV, also wore thin. Kohnen is an excellent accompanist -- his tone is charmless, but no one could ever get lost following his square beat. The Globe's Richard Dyer compared him to "the trampoline on which the Kuijken brothers jump." I wished they'd jumped a little higher.