Handel Messiah Flac

In 1996, Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo's Fire, the Cleveland-based Baroque orchestra that she founded, made a very fine recording of Messiah, but this 2010 album surpasses it in every way. Sorrell's treatment of the slow opening of the Sinfonia tips her hand about what her approach will be to the oratorio as a whole. Rather than playing the rhythm dotted, as written (ponderous) or double dotted, as it's usually interpreted by early music specialists (rigid and severe), she splits the difference and plays it as a triplet, which gives it a lovely dancing lilt. It's indicative of the exceptionally light touch and punchy rhythmic vitality she employs throughout.

René Jacobs' performance of Handel's 1750 version of Messiah is remarkable for the fresh insights he brings to such a familiar work. His reading is fleet but never hurried, and movements flow fluidly from each other, virtually without pause. This Messiah is an integrated whole, whose ebbing and flowing move it inexorably toward its climaxes, avoiding the usual sense that the oratorio is merely a string of separate, thematically related numbers. The speed of some sections, and certain unconventional articulations, can at first seem eccentric, but Jacobs' interpretive decisions are always guided by the meaning of the texts, and when the initial surprise fades, seem obviously to be the best choices possible.

For quality of soloists, this disc ranks top dog… exquisite. Padmore s opening recitative arioso uses silence more eloquently than any other recording I ve heard, while limpid beauty of Scholl s Countertenor voice combined with the subtlety of his interpretation makes the simplest melodies the most eloquent.

Benoit Haller and his Strasbourg-based ensemble, La Chappelle Rhénane, would only agree to make a live recording of this work, whose immense popularity is reflected in its virtually uninterrupted performing tradition. Here is a powerful and highly personal version of this timeless, universal masterpiece, marked by the intense commitment of [only] twelve vocal soloists chosen for their specific vocal colour and their fidelity to Handel's music.

This recording of Messiah by the Dunedin Consort is based on a reconstruction of the original version premiered in Dublin in 1742. The Dublin version is rarely performed because the composer had simplified parts in deference to the vocal limitations of some of the local soloists, because it is not as complete as later versions of the score and because revisions Handel made after the first performance have become standard. This recording also seeks to duplicate the original performing forces as authentically as possible by having the soloists perform the choruses, as well, using a total of only 12 singers. The result is remarkably and refreshingly intimate. In spite of the modesty of scale, conductor John Butt leads a reading that never sounds small or limited; the performers convey the full extent of the work's wide emotional range.

Experience the transcendent glory of Messiah in Sir Andrew Davis’s new, majestic, must-hear edition of Handel’s beloved classic.

This edition of Handel’s Messiah is a landmark recording both for the Academy and in the history of the work, being both the first recording made with the Academy’s own chorus, and the first (and as far as we are aware, only) recording of the version used by Handel for the work’s 1743 London premiere. Sir Neville Marriner’s deliberate choice to break with the massed-choir treatments of the past was greeted enthusiastically by the public, selling over a quarter of a million copies in the first three years, and leading Fanfare’s Michael Carter to remark in 2010: “There have been many recordings of Messiah since this 1976 release and there will no doubt be many more to come, but few, if any, will match, let alone surpass, this of Marriner.”

Handels Messiah is already very well-represented on the market with dozens of existing recordings and new productions appearing at regular intervals. Yet this is a very special version, carefully crafted, Halle Handel Edition in hand, by a Basel-based selection of fine vocal soloists and instrumentalists who have all graduated from the world-famous Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Under the fine direction of Daniela Dolci, singers Miriam Feuersinger, Flavio Ferri-Benedeti, Dino Luthy and Raitis Grigalis join the ensemble Musica Fiorita for a moving studio recording made in October 2015.