Reviews

H+H delivers beauty, mischief, and fun.

The Handel and Haydn Society offered a stunning season closer Friday night at Symphony Hall that garnered not one but two standing ovations, the first occurring most unusually right before intermission.

Sometimes it is hard to understand what was going on in the mind of an orchestral manager booking a concert. The last Handel + Haydn Society concert—despite its many musical merits—was an enigma, an afternoon full of conglomerate causes.

This H+H Society performance suggested Handel’s genius for generating joy.

One of Handel’s strengths lies in his rich experiences encompassing Europe, from his German heritage to his travels in Italy and eventual naturalization as a British citizen.

A shocking discovery that its namesake composer Handel may have benefited from the slave trade led the Handel and Haydn Society to embark almost simultaneously on a research project and an act of musical restitution, “Crossing the Deep,” which is playing this weekend at Jordan Hall in two sold-out performances.

When Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society found records detailing iconic composer George Frideric Handel’s ties to the slave trade, it responded in a way only the organization could: through music and performance.