The Wilderness was a choral piece that didn't do much for me until the soloists made their contributions and they promised more for the main feature. The Organ Duet did similar things by building layers of thematic material until ending with an impressive flourish but by the interval I was yet to be convinced.
The large scale, nearly 70 minutes, of the Confitebor immediately offered reassurance with its opening strings remeniscent of Handel. I now find that Wesley was earlier than I'd thought, only ten years younger than Mozart, which revises my idea that this was pastiche, backward-looking music because he had every right to sound like that, not being more Victorian as I had been assuming. As son of the hymn-writer, Charles and nephew to the founder of Methodism, John, he was known as the 'English Mozart' which makes me wonder why a Methodist was setting a Latin text but explains why one impressive aria by the excellent Claire Seaton brought to mind the Queen of the Night. The Southern Pro Musica strings had a gorgeous tone and carried the oratorio, is it, through its range of solo, ensemble and choral parts, adding Bach's B Minor Mass to the litany of comparisons that could be made in its blend of baroque and classical styles.
So, a whole-hearted success and I'm grateful to the Choral Union for putting on this piece which extended my education in an area that I thought I was reasonably well-read in. It is a monumental work of English choral music that one really wouldn't want to be without.
If all the soloists put in fine performances, it was Claire Seaton, whose incapacity was clearly no handicap to her singing, that made the greatest impression and one was left very pleasantly surprised by the whole evening which overcame any early doubts and ended in resounding splendour.
