H+H’s Jonathan Cohen and the art of musical reenactment

 

Jonathan Cohen conducts the Handel and Haydn Society in Handel's Messiah. Photo: Robert Torres

Jonathan Cohen is a busy conductor. When he’s not leading the Handel and Haydn Society, he keeps musically active with European ensembles and festivals. From April through late July, he conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in rehearsals and performances of Handel’s oratorio Saul for the Glyndebourne Festival. The opera-style reimagining, which included staging by Barrie Kosky, proved another triumph for the 47-year-old conductor. The Guardian conveyed what has become the essence of Cohen’s approach to such repertoire: the performance, its critic reported, revealed the score's unsettling urgency.

On August 1, Cohen was back in Boston. I met him at H+H’s offices on Harcourt Street to discuss the coming season. Chief among his priorities was to the summer’s magic to local audiences this fall.

“I wanted to bring some of that energy and love for [Saul] over here,” Cohen said. “It’s a very special piece, and I wanted it to be done in Boston.”

In two performances this week, Cohen will lead H+H and a starry lineup of soloists in Handel’s oratorio, which casts as much light on the present as the past.

Saul relays the struggles of a young David as he attempts to quell the rage of a mad king. Musically it is one of Handel’s most dramatic efforts. Choruses and arias capture the full range between triumph and desperation. The orchestra, complete with kettle drums and trombones, stretched the usual limits for its time. And the oratorio’s subject about the decline of a mad ruler has proven as timeless as ever.

Cohen sees the play between Saul’s madness and David’s resolution as a Shakespearean dilemma. “It reminds me a little bit of Macbeth,” he said. “And then you’ve got King Lear and the madness of a king. [But] it’s not a study in depth–study of madness–like Shakespeare in the same kind of way. For sure, I think it would be to the audience something that would be in the consciousness.”

Bringing it all off poses challenges for any conductor and ensemble. 

At three hours, “it’s a lot of music,” Cohen said. “So, we’re going to do a few cuts in it. And then to put it all together, there’s very many moving parts in that. You’ve got the solo singers. You’ve got the different instrumentation. We’ve got the chorus work, preparing them and then fitting it together in the schedule in the allotted time.”

This week’s performances will not cut any of the choruses. Instead, Cohen plans to streamline some of the da capo arias by cutting the repeats. H+H will also perform the oratorio in traditional concert fashion, without any staging.

Still, Saul provides ample opportunity for Cohen and H+H to explore the dramatic range from Saul’s rage to David’s heartfelt aria following the death of Saul’s son, Jonathan.

Cohen has worked wonders with similar repertoire. His latest recording of Handel’s Chandos Anthems with Arcangelo course with seismic vigor. And his 2020 recordings of Mozart’s piano concertos with Charles Richard-Hamelin and Les Violons du Roy draw out a lush warmth not typically encountered in period instrument performances.

“I always want to hear a beautiful sound,” Cohen said of his approach. “There’s definitely been an evolution in the approach to gut string instrument playing. Maybe there’s been a shift in focus–of authenticity–from ‘this is my string length and string thickness.’ I’m not saying it’s not important. But maybe it’s been a shift more to lead to the overall expression of sound.” 

The quest for authenticity has become a loaded concept in musicology circles. Yet Cohen sees it as less restrictive of what musicians can do with Baroque and Classical repertoire than a creative act akin to historical reenactment.

“It was a good and necessary reaction to what I think music was becoming,” Cohen said of the historical performance movement. “It was a desire to peel away the interpretive layers. I think it was foundational at the beginning of the movement: a desire to have the right equipment and our research into what the strings were doing.”

“But I think the desire for musical expression is now something that concerns me,” he added. “I spent a long time with [conductor] William Christie. The way Bill worked, he was a real master of theatricality.”

The same focus on sheer expression and dramatic flourish has certainly influenced Cohen’s approach to Saul, beginning with the first bars of the oratorio.

“It’s about triumph and war and trumpets,” Cohen said of the opening. “[Handel] used these famous kettle drums from the Duke of Marlborough, and he specifically requested them for this piece.”

While this week’s performances won’t make use of such artifacts, Cohen aims for the same gravitas.

“I think a concern of ours is to deliver a sound that serves the text of the “Hallelujah” with blazing trumpets,” Cohen said. “That’s my mission: I stand there and I want the sound to blaze.”

For Cohen, the approach is less an appeal to academic queries than an act of rich, but deeply informed, imagination. 

“Did you read about the new Chrisopher Nolan film coming out next year?’ he asked. “It’s Ulysses. And, as ever, there’s always people who say, ‘well, that’s not quite the economics that they had in this sort of time.’ And I think there’s something with him on file saying, ‘absolutely, that’s what I want to convey, the message of the story.’ If it’s not quite factual in some elements, I know that and that’s fine with me.”

While purists might scoff at that view, Cohen feels that it is a valid way to engage a wider audience. 

“It doesn’t mean that the quest for historical recreation is an invalid thing,” he said. “Maybe just the way about it in the priorities. It can be really instructive for people to help them into that world.”

Historically informed ensembles like H+H, in Cohen’s estimation, meet these interpretive challenges head on.

“Maybe that’s an American thing?” Cohen said. “A Boston thing? But I find enthusiasm over here. People are infectiously enthusiastic in including the audience, which I love. So, it means there’s a real, real open heart, a kind of goodwill, to putting projects together. That sort of “Yes We Can” attitude.”

The same gusto will lead H+H as it rolls out several recent initiatives, like its celebrated Youth Choruses and CitySing program, which join the H+H chorus for Saul, and H+H long awaited debut at Carnegie Hall on May 14, where Cohen will lead a program of Bach and Telemann. 

The season ahead offers a trove of familiar and unfamiliar fare. Cohen conducts Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate and Haydn’s Symphony No. 44 in concerts January 9 and 11. Handel’s Water Music and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 will provide the centerpieces of an all-Baroque program on April 10 and 12. Cohen also conducts Telemann’s cantata Du aber Daniel gehe hin in concerts on May 15 and 16. In addition, he will lead Handel’s Messiah to ring in the holiday season November 28- 30.

H+H will also turn the spotlight on several podium guests. Raphaël Pichon returns to Boston to conduct the ensemble in a program of Rameau and Beethoven on October 24 and 25. Scott Allen Jarrett will lead the Baroque Christmas program on December 18 and 21. James Burton will direct the H+H chorus in the “Voices Carry” program of Kuhnau, Schütz, Scarlatti, and Gesualdo on May 29 and 31. 

As in past seasons, concerts will be held in Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, Sanders Theatre, and Old South Church.

For Cohen, the season feels like H+H continues to climb new heights.

“I think it’s an exciting time to be doing music in the U.S.,” he said.