Messiah Musings Part Seven:

By Josiah Tazelaar

 (To do justice to this segment of "Musings", I would so much have liked to talk to you all, and play various recordings to illustrate what I'm about to write.)

    Back in the 1950s, when I first sang Handel's "Messiah" with a chorus, it was with Grand Rapids's Calvin College Choir.  It numbered around 300, maybe 400, and it was impressive.  When I went to Ann Arbor as a student at UM, I joined the Choral Union which also performed "Messiah" annually.  There were more than 400 members.  That was even more impressive.  I would venture to say that all over the USA, "Messiah" was sung by massive choruses, because "that's the way 'The Messiah' should sound.  The larger, the more religious it seemed.  Solemn.  Fervent.  Christian.  The soloists, too, should have large voices, and they should sing their solos exactly as written.  No extra notes in the Da Capo arias second time around.  Embellishment was considered vainglorious, bringing attention to oneself.  Un-Christian.  A great recording of the oratorio at that time exemplified this style.  It was Sir Thomas Beecham's conducting the orchestration of Eugene Goossens, who created a large orchestra that included clarinets, piccolos, drums and cymbals, French horns, trombones, and what not, because, as Sir Thomas said in the record notes, if those instruments had existed then, Handel would have used them.  The soloists were exemplified by the stentorian tenor Jon Vickers, who sang the solos magnificently, without embellishment, and with such authority that it seemed as if he saw to it himself that the valleys would be exalted and the crooked would be made straight. 

    What a shock it was therefore, that at about the same time, Westminster Records would release a recording by Hermann Scherchen, with smaller forces, smaller voices, and a few choral numbers ending quietly.  "That's not 'The Messiah', most of us snorted.  It was not "religious" enough.  It was controversial, this recording.  The excellent notes in the album booklet describe the difficulty in finding true "Handelian" singers during that time.  (Listening to this recording today, it sounds curiously contrived, tediously slow, despite the smaller forces, and more idiosyncratic than inspired)

    But times have changed, meanwhile.  There has been a great revival of the Baroque style that began in the 1970s, and countless new recordings of "Messiah" offer an astounding variety in interpretations.  Small choirs, period instruments, flexible solo and choral voices, interpolations, ad libs, ornamentation, and very quick and danceable tempos are now the standard.  The performances of the past sound stodgy today. 

    But that period of the past lasted a long time.  Handel himself had used about 40 voices and 40 instrumentalists.  He did not expect, surely, that 400 voices would be able to negotiate "And He Shall Purify" or "For Unto Us" with all that melisma.  Large groups simply had to sing the choruses more slowly.  And 400-member choruses were nothing compared to the numbers in 19th Century England.  Already, just 25 years after Handel's death, in order to commemorate this event, there was a performace by 250 singers and 275 instrumentalists, and eventually in the Festival Performances of the Victorian Era, there were 4000, even 5000 in the choir.  Imagine "His Yoke is Easy" with 5000 singers!  "Messiah Mania" in full flower!  The larger, the better.  What would Handel have thought?!  Who knows:  he might have loved it.  After all, he loved show!

    So, the recent recordings by the likes of Boston Baroque, or The Sixteen, or by Paul McCreesh, et al, are now considered the right way to perform Handel's "Messiah".

    But, every so often, I like to get out that Thomas Beecham blockbuster, turn up the volume, and luxuriate in Victorian splendor!

 

    (My next "Musings" with our Spring Concert (Bach's "St. John Passion") in mind, will compare Handel and Bach, and then, contrast them.  

continue to Part Eight

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

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