Handel - Messiah / Baird · Lane · Price · Deas · Ama Deus Ens.

1. Messiah, oratorio, HWV 56
Composed by George Frideric Handel

Product Description

Opera News
"Also worth hearing is Baird's Messiah, a lively, period-instrument recording in which she brings startling freshness to music that would appear to have revealed all its secrets long ago."

Tracks:

Overture: 'Sinfonia'
Tenor Recitative: 'Comfort Ye'
Tenor Air: 'Every Valley'
Chorus: 'And The Glory'
Bass Recitative: 'Thus Saith'
Alto Air: 'But Who May Abide'
Chorus: 'And He Shall Purify'
Alto Recitative: 'Behold A Virgin'
Alto/Chorus: 'O Thou That Tellest'
Bass Recitative: 'For Behold'
Bass Air: 'The People That Walked'
Chorus: 'For Unto Us A Child'
Pastoral Symphony
Soprano Recitative: 'There Were'
Chorus: 'Glory To God'
Soprano Air: 'Rejoice Greatly'
Alto Recitative: 'Then Shall'
Alto/Soprano Duo: 'He Shall Feed'
Chorus: 'His Yoke Is Easy'
Chorus: 'Behold The Lamb'
Alto Air: 'He Was Despised'
Chorus: 'Surely He Hath Borne'
Chorus: 'And With His Stripes'

Tracks:

Chorus: 'All We Like Sheep'
Tenor Recitative: 'All They'
Chorus: 'He Trusted In God'
Tenor Recitative: 'Thy Rebuke'
Tenor Air: 'Behold And See'
Soprano Recitative: 'He Was Cut'
Soprano Air: 'But Thou Didst Not'
Chorus: 'Lift Up Your Heads'
Tenor Recitative: 'Unto Which'
Chorus: 'Let All The Angels'
Alto Air: 'Thou Art Gone Up'
Chorus: 'The Lord Gave The Word'
Soprano Air: 'How Beautiful'
Chorus: 'Their Sound'
Bass Air: 'Why Do The Nations'
Chorus: 'Let Us Break Their Bonds'
Tenor Recitative: 'He That Dwelleth'
Tenor Air: 'Thou Shalt Break Them'
Chorus: 'Hallelujah'
Soprano Air: 'I Know'
Chorus: 'Since By Man Came Death'
Bass Recitative: 'Behold, I Tell You'
Bass Air: 'The Trumpet Shall Sound'
Alto Recitative: 'Then Shall Be'
Alto/Tenor/Chorus: 'O Death'
Soprano Air: 'If God Be For Us'
Chorus: 'Worthy Is The Lamb'

Customer Reviews:

Baird makes it worthwhile.......2005-12-09

Ms Baird is a favorite period specialist and the primary reason I acquired this recording. Her rendition of "I know that my redeemer liveth" has a soaring quality that is worth the price of the discs. Ms Lane also makes a very positive contribution. I'm less enthusiastic about the rest of the company. The period orchestra is piquant and enthusiastic but frequently unkempt. I don't care at all for the bad intonation by the solo trumpet. Conductor Radu applies some unorthodox interpretive touches that are surprising in the HIP context. However, his frequent choral tempo shifts - particularly slowdowns/articulation silences before the final cadence - quickly lose their novelty and seem mannered. The recording itself has moments of overloading. I've played it on two very high quality systems and the distortion always occurs at the same points.

Strong, dramatic approach+period instruments: Unique.......2003-12-28

In the United States, Handel's Messiah has become ubiquitous holiday season music; whereas, it used to be split between Christmas and Easter, back in the days when people knew enough of their religion to bother with the Protestant and Catholic church calendars. Of course, Mr. Handel has nobody but himself to blame for this seasonal ritualization of his most famous oratorio, since he initiated the custom of giving it at Christmas time as a charity fund-raiser for the local children's hospital in London. In those days, the high infant mortality rates, combined with the maternal mortality rates, meant there were plenty of orphaned or abandoned children to be found in that teeming city.

Still, apart from its Dickensian warmth as a sort of industrial-era morality tale, and its laudatory charity purposes, Handel's oratorio brings us a folio of quite extraordinary music. Since we have become so accustomed to Messiah's top-forty status, and since you may hear the main choruses being played on elevator music tapes, it is worth the deliberate effort to remember: before Handel came along to demonstrate what powerful choral writing could still do in music of public occasion, the glories of the great medieval polyphonists were largely unknown to the majority of musical people.

In Messiah, Handel demonstrates the perennially apt powers of the human voice, in solo recitatives and arias of dramatic and reflective genius, along with choral writing that amazed his contemporaries, as well as almost everybody else who has ever heard it. Beethoven, lying on his death bed, pointed to an open manuscript of the Messiah lying on his bedside table, saying, "There lies the truth."

The value of this oddly affecting recording of Messiah is something greater than the sum of its several parts. Like other third generation period instrumentalists such as Il Giardino Armonico, the Ama Deus ensemble does NOT take a timid-albeit- limpid approach to baroque styles. Rather, they play fiercely, all out. Multiple, varying shades of intonation remain enough on the tuning mark to maintain the overall sense of chord and harmony, while, true to gut strings and the stresses of playing through, alive, you get flavorful moments which serve to bring out the taste of the music, rather like peppercorns embedded in the larger recipe. Their varied phrasing is characteristically snappy, rhythmic, and crisp. The group and their leader, Mr. Valentin Radu, favor fast tempos, though varied according to dramatic and musical aims. If you are used to polish, polish, polish, this performance will only make you batty with its lacks.

Throughout, the soloists, ensemble, and (I believe) choir improvise ornaments, and toss variations in phrasing back and forth among themselves. Phrasing is emphatic, on a few occasions. I won't detail these since I presume they are spur-of-the-moment surprises which need to catch you up short to make the point. The chorus may seem small-scale, at first hearing. This allows some pages a stimulating intimacy of communication .... like a Renaissance motet, instead of the cathedral-filling and heaven-storming grandiosities of Berlioz or Verdi (say). Nevertheless, when called for in other places(the Hallelujah chorus), the choir can manage sufficient weight and sound to make the requisite glory of God appear, vividly.

Although the soloists are solid, they have plain voices. Each soloist appears to have sung enough that they are quite alert to the meanings of the words, and capable of good vocal technique and effective vocal communication. This solid level of vocal talent, while not superstar in status, accords well with the soloists Handel appears to have had on hand for the first performances in Dublin, who reportedly were a mixed lot. Though this music is so fine that nobody seeks less than the best voices available for their own concerts. This ordinariness of voice somehow makes the nobility and effect of the music all that much more forceful, somehow. As somebody else has noted in other reviews, the ladies stand out a bit more than the men, vocally, but not by much.

Thus, impurities and all, this performance remains quite recommendable. It gets five stars, not because it is the fastest luxury sedan in the test drive lots, but because it somehow achieves an enthusiasm, purity of heart, and fiery declamation that meet the music of Handel at its own apogee of genius. Other performances you can get will settle you back into leather-cushioned seats with automatic everything, powerfully whirring you at various speeds past the scenery, maintaining your complete comfort until the end appears in sight. However, if the journey is the destination, this budget-priced performance may convince you that the trip was worth taking, in the first place.

Good Orchestra.... but.......2003-12-28

The orchestra was fine... just as Handel would have wanted it. The male soloists were not strong or in the style of this music. The female soloists are far better. The chorus is not balanced at all. Tempos fly all over the place. The music is great, though!

One of the GREATEST performances of the Messiah ever!.......2002-12-16

I would classify this as one of the greatest Messiah's ever, on a piece by piece basis.
the Overture-Masterfully executed...thought the first reviewer thought the orchestra too small...i believe this is exactly what Handel had in mind.
"Comfort Ye" and "Every Valley"- Mr. Price executes these pieces masterfully, and the harpsichord work is amazing!
"And the Glory"-this first taste of the choir is absolutely immaculate! gives away just enough of the power of the choir to make u wait for the later choruses
Ms. Lane's performance of "But who may abide", "Behold a Virgin" and "O though that tellest" are absolutely hair raising
the "Unto us a child is born" strikes the balance between choir and orchestra, which is crucial in this piece, better than any i know of.
the alto/soprano transition in "He shall feed" is stark, amazing in it's contrast...just as i believe Master Handel would have had it
the violin opening to "Behold the Lamb", followed by the almost ghostly rising vocals makes one nearly fall to his knees then and there...and we still have 50 minutes until the "Halleluia" chorus!
That great chorus, the "Halleluia" is perhaps the only downfall on this CD. it feels some how rushed, and seems to jerk through several speed changes between "HALLELUIA!" and "FOR THE LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT REIGNETH" to the "FOREVER! AND EVER!" section.
Following this great climaxis, there are a set of pieces which are rather less than great (excluding "The trumpet shall sound")...though i attribute this more to Mr. Handel than to any performance group. After the shattering melody of Ms. Baird's "If God be for us" we are left emotionally tattered, and more than vulnerable to what follows. The great ringing opening "WORTHY IS THE LAMB" is one of the preimenent pieces in all of music, and this is perhaps one of the great recordings of it. It is followed by the "Amen", and i do not for a moment hesitate to call this THE greatest recording of the closing "Amen", i only wish it was on it's own track.
Thank You.

Despite warts, an intriguing performance.......2000-12-23

Here are my favorite aspects: 1) The diction is AMAZING! Every word is clearly heard. You will not need a libretto at all. 2) The conducting is interesting; Radu gives the impression that he actually *knows* the text, and the message that Handel wanted when he penned the music. 3) the engineering is fine. 4) the female soloists are excellent

What don't I like? 1) The ensemble playing is less than clean. Yes, the attacks are there, but often intonation is not. The trumpet's big moment in "The Trumpet Shall Sound" is not very clean--and that's one of my favorite moments! 2) The choir seems poorly balanced in favor of the higher voices. 3) The orchestra is very small and sounds it. 4) Radu in his attempts to make points sometimes man-handles the music. 5) the male soloists, while pleasant, are outshone by their female colleagues.

So why 5 stars? Because even though there are some definite warts, the overall impact of the performance is terrific!

When comparing this to the Bach Collegium performance on BIS, a favorite, I feel that the two recordings can be categorized as flashy, if rough-and-ready (Vox), while the other is polished, reverant and beautiful (BIS).

Music Review: