It’s a long way from Bruckner and Wagner to Handel. But such is the life of orchestral players and with the help of English choral specialist Stephen Layton the WA Symphony Orchestra made the leap from last week’s Germanic Romanticism to this weekend’s Messiah.

On Friday December 2, a 25-piece orchestra and the WASO Chorus joined with Layton and four English vocalists for a Messiah that, despite some untidy moments, had enthralling dramatic clarity.

From the opening Sinfony Layton revealed his flair for crafting through dynamics, particularly the use of restraint. Repeated phrases became whisper soft echoes while exciting crescendos were built from repeated sequences. Layton’s sense of dramatic direction was applied to the megastructure of Messiah too. The outer sections were performed with joyful vigour (although the fugues revealed a vulnerable chorus tenor section) while Part Two was the dramatic epicentre with pianissimo fragility and drawn-out harmonic suspensions.

The soloists sang with the purity of the English choral tradition, sometimes barely audible over the orchestra but effective in their use of light and shade. Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston’s languorous He was despised had stillness and intimacy while tenor Gwilym Bowen’s tremulous performance of Thy rebuke has broken His heart over extremely soft string accompaniment brought to...