God Said no

Trust In God (1984). Released in 1984, Trust in God finds Green distracted throughout. Around the same time of this, a brilliant documentary, The Gospel According to Al Green, was being worked on. The film's subtext of Green shunning yet still loving R&B worked its way into the studio, too. This is gospel all right, but often of the perfunctory, barely awake variant. As pure gospel was causing Green's mind to wander, he attempted to solve the problem by covering early-'70s pop songs. Joe South's "Don't It Make You Wanta Go Home" gets a great and involved vocal from Green. The best song, the Jean Terrell-era Supremes "Up the Ladder to the Roof," turns into a prime Al Green song, with its sly drums and all of Green's attention…

Leonard Bernstein's own version bettered? Yes, indeed! This is, handily, the best sung, best played, most intelligently interpreted recording of Mass currently available. Of course, Bernstein's rendition always will have sterling qualities, including some wonderful solo singers with really characterful "pop" and Broadway voices, but for its sheer musical integrity combined with the advantage of the composer's final revisions to the score, this version is unbeatable. Jubilant Sykes, as the Celebrant, easily outclasses Alan Titus' very fine premiere recording of the role. His voice has more edge; he's more at ease with the various pop idioms; he sounds radiant at the work's opening and grows increasingly desperate as it proceeds. This only serves to make his climactic breakdown tragically believable.

The various street singers are, one and all, terrific. "God Said" becomes the work's comic climax, which is as it should be. "I believe in God", "Confession", "World Without End", and "Thank You" are both idiomatic and beautifully sung. The children's choir sounds luminous in the Sanctus, while the adult chorus, from Morgan State University, sings with gusto as well as immaculate diction, with every word clearly comprehensible. Marin Alsop knits the whole ensemble together with infallible insight and verve. Her tempos, a bit different from Bernstein's, quicker here ("God Said"), a touch slower there (the wild dance in the Offertory), are no less right.

David Hurwitz - classicstoday

There are so many excellent recordings of Messiah that the addition of another only further complicates the decision for the listener, but having such an abundance of riches should be no cause for complaint. Hyperion's recording with Stephen Layton leading the choir Polyphony and the Britten Sinfonia is not among the flashiest or most star-studded, but it is immensely musically satisfying.

It was this set which, in company with one from Sir Colin Davis issued by Philips a few weeks earlier, inaugurated the era of 'progressive' Messiah recordings. They had of course been foreshadowed—by Sir Adrian Boult, notably, and by the work of such editors as John Tobin and Watkins Shaw. But this was one of the first to use a chamber orchestra, lively tempos and ornamentation: and between them Davis and Mackerras made us listen afresh to a work whose performance traditions had threatened to become hidebound… The forces aren't 'authentic', but rather larger, and women's voices are used in the chorus. It is however an excellent chorus, well disciplined and clean.

In November 1984 Sir Colin Davis conducted a performance of Messiah in Munich which, says the booklet which comes with these records, ''was a revelation to public and performers alike''. The surprising fact is that Messiah was previously almost unknown there. Enthusiasm was such that a recording was quickly organized with the same soloists. At rehearsal Sir Colin told the chorus to forget the B minor Mass; ''this is the world of Italian opera'', and as a result many of the choruses ''dance with a vitality born of freshness and discovery''.