Search - Handel, Leppard, Eco :: Messiah

Small-Scale Handel; Big-Time Results

Erik North | San Gabriel, CA USA | 12/19/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Because Handel did not leave set in stone that most famous of all choral works, namely his masterpiece "Messiah", there is no definitive version of this epic oratorio about the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Many arrangements for orchestra have been made of it, by everyone from Mozart (who added trombones to Handel's original scoring) to Sir Eugene Goosens, whose extreme embellishments for Sir Thomas Beecham's 1959 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra recording continue to either embolden or enrage listeners to this very day. And there are, of course, those of the period instrument movement who try, with frequently solid results, to speculate what this masterpiece of Western music sounded like at its premiere in Dublin in April 1742.



But there is also a middle ground for modern orchestras and choirs who take advantage of the full forces Handel called for but don't tilt to extremes. One such recording of that kind is this fine 1984 recording featuring a quarter of fine vocal soloists--Felicity Palmer, Helen Watts, Ryland Davies, and John Shirley-Quirk. In this case, the orchestra and choir are the relatively modest forces of the English Chamber Orchestra and Choir, under the baton of Raymond Leppard. Being a specialist in the Baroque and Classical period that Leppard is, especially with Handel, "Messiah" is in good hands. Even with a relatively small-scale approach to the work, the imposing grandeur is not sacrificed for the sake of pomp, circumstance, or period-instrument fidelity. This all-British recording is right up there with Sir Andrew Davis' 1987 Toronto Symphony recording for EMI (which I've also reviewed) for the best available recordings of this oft-recorded work, and comes highly recommended. It is small-scale Handel, but the results are a big time success."