Search - George Frideric Handel, Sir Thomas Beecham, Jennifer Vyvyan :: Handel - Messiah / Vyvyan · Sinclair · Vickers · Tozzi · Royal PO · Beecham

UN-PC MAGIC

Klingsor Tristan | Suffolk | 05/26/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Just how un-PC can you get? It would be hard to get much further out of line with period performance thinking than these CDs of Messiah. Re-orchestrations (by Eugene Goossens) supplement the Handelian orchestra with a full complement of horns, trombones, doubled woodwind (including piccolo), a full string section (including a well-upholstered double-bass section) and a batterie of percussion. The soloists are led by a heldentenor (one of the finest post-war heldentenors, in fact) in full flight. Tempi are often slow by today's standards. There is not a vocal decoration in sight. And the whole enterprise is led by a man who plundered his family's substantial wealth to further his conducting ambitions, even to the extent of founding two separate London orchestras.



But I adore it. That plunderer is a conjurer in the shape, of course, of Tommy Beecham. And the magic he weaves around a work he loved dearly should be heard by all lovers of great music and great music-making. It's interesting that Mozart's arrangement of Messiah should be politically acceptable today, but this sort of thing not. I would certainly argue that all the Goosens/Beecham re-orchestration here is just as true if not truer to the spirit of Handel as Mozart was. And the sounds they make are sometimes surprisingly delicate, often rich and luminous, frequently glorious and always enlivened and enlightened by Sir Thomas' conducting - even where speeds are significantly slower than we've become accustomed to.



As for the singers, they are a vintage 1959 set. Jon Vickers is the aforementioned heldentenor and he acquits himself with great distinction in a role apparently so far from his usual fach. OK, so there's none of the decoration and vocal gymnastics we've come to expect in Handel, but - particularly by the time we reach the sequence of `Thy rebuke hath broken his heart', `Behold and see', `He was cut off' and `But thou didst not leave' - he provides a typically intense and deeply moving performance. Jennifer Vyvyan, too, is a familiar voice from that period (especially as part of the Britten/Aldeburgh rep.) and brings her clarity and pearly brilliance to the Christmas sequence as well as a simplicity of utterance to match the great Isobel Baillie in `I know that my Redeemer liveth'. Monica Sinclair is another stalwart of the period: her contralto tone may seem a little heavy by modern standards, especially if compared to a counter-tenor, but a lifetime's experience in singing Messiah up and down the country meant she knew just how to get the most out of each of her numbers and is most affecting in `He was despised'. Giorgio Tozzi is a real bass and fits perfectly into this group. Choir and orchestra are Beecham's own Royal Philharmonic and a delight is guaranteed throughout for all but the most purist of Period Performance addicts. Of course I wouldn't want to be without the Hogwood or Parrott or Christophers performance. But I definitely wouldn't want to be without this one, too."

A gigantic, hideously beautiful monstrosity

D. Ma | 01/01/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

""ba·roque: ... 3. Extravagant, complex, or bizarre, especially in ornamentation"



What happens when you add a double orchestra, a gigantic brass section, and inexplicably, several large gongs to a Messiah performance? You get a beautiful, hideously ornate work that is truly "Baroque." Think the original Messiah score is too anemic? Add instrumental lines, more solo instruments, and plenty of cymbals!



Compared with my touchstone Messiah recording (the Telarc recording by Pearlman and the Boston Baroque) this performance is ponderous and exaggerated, like how I'd imagine Crème brûlée would taste if prepared by Kull the Conqueror. However, there is nothing quite like the experience of listening to a double chorus/brass belt out the Halleujah Chorus at full volume while feeling the walls shake from the random insertions of percussion that Beecham seems to see fit to add to the score.



Once a year, I still enjoy pulling this recording out to terrify my friends. This work is not be listened to by true Baroque purists. My wife still curls up into the fetal position when she hears this recording start up. But I must confess, I do truly adore this recording, if nothing else than for the camp value."