The three works at the weekend were monumentally mixed in quality, but Yip Wing-sie's choral conducting made the whole programme worthwhile.
Hearing Yip conduct William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast made one realise how inadequate mere recordings can be. This is a piece which affirms the glory of a big auditorium, big voices and the kind of resonance impossible on the most sophisticated electronic systems. And this is exactly where Yip excelled.
Yes, one might have asked for more poetry in the music. But Yip decided to emphasise the jazzy rhythms, the jagged lines, the rip-roaring choral passages and staccato shouts rather than the infrequent delicacy of the words. And in this, she presented a grandiose show.
After all, this is no pleasant Elgarian British oratorio. The Old Testament text emphasises destruction and revenge and Yip conducted with incendiary heat.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Chorus goes from strength to strength and it made nary a mistake in the difficult harmonies, while the words were usually clear enough that one needed no programme.
Baritone Stephen Roberts has a rather thankless task here, as the voice of declamatory reason against the often violent choral passages, but his voice was rich enough to complement the grandeur of the chorus.