NEWS FEATURE: `Messiah’ Recordings Available to Suit Every Taste

c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Reputedly, when told once what a “grand entertainment” his English oratorio “Messiah” provided people, George Frideric Handel replied, “I should be sorry if I only entertained them _ I wished to make them better.” Another ideal of betterment applies to “Messiah” on recordings. Repeat experiences of this seasonal favorite […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Reputedly, when told once what a “grand entertainment” his English oratorio “Messiah” provided people, George Frideric Handel replied, “I should be sorry if I only entertained them _ I wished to make them better.”

Another ideal of betterment applies to “Messiah” on recordings. Repeat experiences of this seasonal favorite on disc better enable even a veteran concert-goer to delve deeper into its many facets; moreover, recordings can give those who don’t get a chance to hear the work in a live performance an idea of what all the noise is about.


Not long after its 1741 premiere in Dublin, “Messiah” became an annual rite for choral societies in English-speaking countries. (Mozart even re-orchestrated the work for German-language performances.) Just as holiday concerts of “Messiah” are plentiful nationwide, there are myriad recordings available. Complicating the matter is the fact that Handel _ a can-do man of the theater _ hardly conducted the same score twice, rewriting arias for specific singers, etc.

Despite dozens and dozens of “Messiah” titles already on the market, versions to suit every notion of the work keep arriving. Recent releases run the gamut _ from a reissue of a mainstream mid-’60s set to an avant-electronic “Messiah Remix,” from a gimmicky “dream cast” compilation to a scholarly, period-instrument performance in surround sound.

In 19th-century England, with its great tradition of amateur choral singing, “Messiah” became a symbolic civic activity as much as a work of sacred art. The ranks of a “Messiah” chorus swelled from the few dozen singers of Handel’s time to several hundred and beyond, with a large orchestra to match. Conductors built on Mozart’s additions to Handel’s scoring, to keep orchestras from being drowned out by the massive choirs. Famous mid-century recordings by English conductors Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent contain vestiges of this Victorian extravagance.

“Messiah” appeared in a new guise in the mid-’60s, as ideas on authentic Baroque practices seeped into mainstream professional music-making. A new wave of more vital recordings _ conducted by Colin Davis (Philips), Charles Mackerras (EMI) and Robert Shaw (RCA, just reissued) _ reflected a desire to hear the work performed closer to a way Handel might have recognized. These can be considered mid-sized interpretations.

Lamenting “Messiah” festival overkill in 1891, George Bernard Shaw pleaded in print for a concert in a small hall with a “chorus of 20 capable artists.” He added, “Some of us would be glad to hear the work seriously performed once before we die.”

It took nearly a century, but Shaw surely applauded Richard Westenburg from the beyond. His American choral group Musica Sacra recorded a thoughtful, stylish “Messiah” for RCA in 1981 with a chorus of just 29 voices.

But it was Christopher Hogwood’s L’Oiseau-Lyre recording from the same year that truly put Handel’s iconic work through a refiner’s fire. With the Foundling Hospital and Covent Garden scores Handel conducted in 1754 as his basis, Hogwood directed a choir of boys along with the Academy of Ancient Music on period instruments. The piquancy of boy trebles, the tang of gut strings and the thwack of hard sticks on timpani in the climactic choruses made for an ear-tingling experience. The vocal soloists included English soprano Emma Kirkby, whose pure, vibrato-light tone redefined the early music voice.


The success of Hogwood’s venture inaugurated a golden age for “Messiah” recordings. Following Hogwood were fellow English early-music vocal specialists John Eliot Gardiner (Philips), Harry Christophers (Hyperion) and Andrew Parrott (Virgin, just reissued); the solo casts of the last two also include Kirkby.

Of the later ’80s recordings, by far the most alluring is Trevor Pinnock’s English Concert album on Archiv. It boasts beautifully evocative playing of period instruments, idiomatically rhythmic choral singing and a first-class solo crew: soprano Arleen Auger, mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, countertenor Michael Chance, tenor Howard Crook and bass John Tomlinson.

During the 1990s classical recording boom, other early-music maestros essayed “Messiah,” often incorporating different variants of arias and other distinctive options. The sets led by Martin Pearlman (Telarc), Nicholas McGegan and William Christie (both Harmonia Mundi) and Masaaki Suzuki (BIS) all have merits. In many ways, though, the top new-century choice is Paul McCreesh’s 1997 Gabrieli Consort recording on Archiv, reissued this year in a surround-sound Super Audio CD edition. McCreesh raises the bar on the ideal balance of scholarship and musicianship, with his superb soloists including contralto Bernarda Fink and tenor Charles Daniels.

Of new Handel products, Decca’s “Messiah: The Dream Cast” is one to avoid. Veering from period ensembles and small choruses to modern orchestras and bigger groups is irritating; worse, you have to hear Joan Sutherland swamp an aria with operatic overstatement. For those on a budget (or short of time), there is no better highlights disc than that culled from McGegan’s fine 1992 set. It features a moving Lorraine Hunt in the rarely heard soprano version of “He was despised.”

In 1956, for a Carnegie Hall concert and high-profile Columbia session, Leonard Bernstein created a personal vision of “Messiah.” He employed a “cleaned up” Victorian edition of the score but, uniquely, rearranged the work’s three parts into two, dividing it by Christmas and Easter themes. It was highly controversial, but radio personality Garrison Keillor described being “bowled over” as a youth by the performance’s fervor, “never having imagined there could be anything so irresistible and delightful.”

Going much further is the new “Messiah Remix” from Cantaloupe Music, the label of avant-garde collective Bang on a Can. The disc features the digital “Messiah” fantasies of electronic remix artists and computer-friendly composers. Few “Messiah” experiences have touched this listener more than Paul Lansky’s “Post-Pastoral” or Scanner’s “Insulation Mix,” in which Handel’s Passiontide themes morph into darkly atmospheric soundscapes fit for a holy ghost. It may not displace a McCreesh, yet this inventive album led to hearings of the true “Messiah” with freshly inspired ears.


MO/PH/JL END BAMBARGER

(Bradley Bambarger is classical music critic for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)

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