NICHOLAS Kraemer is noted as a conductor of historically informed performances so this was never going to be a John Barbirolli account of Mendelssohn's famous oratorio, although he was keen to emphasise the work's drama.
Victorian trappings of piety went for a start – it was a pity he couldn't jettison as well the more recently added, underlying rumbling during Elijah's It Is Enough and immediately after.
Disconcerting for some would have been reduced string sound
coming from the Hallé – who were excellent throughout – which was in keeping with Kraemer's apparent desire for clarity of texture and transparency.
The four distinguished soloists were split across the stage, Janice Watson and Susan Bickley off left, Andrew Kennedy off right, and moving to more central positions to sing their arias, with only Elijah – the superb Roderick Williams – fixed in the middle.
The treble soloist in the first half, Xavier Wright, was on the front row of the chorus altos.
For all Kraemer's brisk tempi (125 minutes for Elijah is quick), occasionally with Bach-ian overtones, patently so in the chorus' The Fire Descends From Heaven, it seemed go down very well.
Andrew Kennedy's If With All Your Hearts was curiously shaped, intelligently, but in declamatory fashion – the purging hand of Kraemer?
Above all there was the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, which sang out of its collective skin with intoxicating vigour and intent.
If ever a chorus were up for a work, the Phil were here. They were magnificent.
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