Haendel's music : England in Madeleine church

The Madeleine church hosted on June 6th the Plantagent choir which performed The Messiah, from Haendel. The audience, as attentive as during a religious service got what it was looking for : an immersion in a solemn, reverential and enchanting atmosphere.


Placed in the transept, under the highest vaults of the church, the choir, the orhestra and the solists got there the best echo to their performance emphasizing the polyphonic caracteristics of the Haendel's masterwork. The only wrong note was the unpredictable absence of the bass.


The performance was maybe an unvoluntarily tribute to the Elizabeth II jubilee with Angers choirs and orchestra bearing the name of the royal Anjou dynasty of England. Haendel was himsel an English copposer (born in Germany) who settled in London in 1712.


As darkness invaded the Madeleine church, the Haendel's Messiah,one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music, with its famous Hallelujah, reigned over the Angers public.