Concert review

The Feast of Alexander or the power of music

The Chorakademie and Concerto Stella Matutina offered top-class baroque music.(Bild: Chorakademie)

Handel's oratorio "The Feast of Alexander" was performed at the weekend in Vorarlberg in a collaboration between the Vorarlberg Choir Academy and Concerto Stella Matutina. 

Markus Landerer, cathedral conductor at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, comes to Vorarlberg every year. From 2002 to 2006, he was the cathedral conductor in Feldkirch and at around the same time director of the Bregenz Festival Choir. At that time, the Vorarlberg Choir Academy was also formed, which officially gave its first concert in 2008 and has performed a large oratorio every year since then, not even interrupted by coronavirus.

A highly appreciated commitment that has been very well received by the audience. The baroque orchestra Concerto Stella Matutina was also founded under the direction of Markus Landerer, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year and has since enjoyed success far beyond the region. Together, these two orchestras have now performed Handel's oratorio "The Feast of Alexander or the Power of Music", on Saturday evening in Feldkirch Cathedral and on Sunday as a matinee at the Kulturbühne AmBach in Götzis.

Human emotions
This oratorio depicts a victory celebration of the conqueror Alexander the Great. With his songs, the singer Timotheus evokes the most diverse states of mind in the emperor: triumph and mourning, love, drunkenness and sleep. In the Baroque era, when composers were very interested in depicting human emotions, this text must have been highly inspiring, but today this theme tends to pass us by.

Nevertheless, this oratorio is two hours of the most wonderful music, culminating in praise for Cecilia, the patron saint of musical art. And the performance under the overall direction of Markus Landerer was wonderful, apart from the slightest reservations.

The expressive vocal soloists Cornelia Horak, soprano, Daniel Johannsen, tenor and Daniel Ochoa, bass, deserve special mention. They were all rewarded with standing ovations from the packed auditorium.