Messiah

“A lifetime of performing Messiah has brought me enough courage to record this singularly famous piece of music. With the finest musicians and soloists on the planet surrounding me, I’m finally ready to lay down my personal interpretation for posterity.”

“A lifetime of performing Messiah has brought me enough courage to record this singularly famous piece of music. With the finest musicians and soloists on the planet surrounding me, I’m finally ready to lay down my personal interpretation for posterity.”

It's hard to imagine another orchestra and chorus coming as close to perfection as the LSO do on this disc. With even tempo, clear articulation and well-mannered dynamics throughout, like Handel himself would have felt his composition was given as fine a treatment as any. The piece itself needs no introduction. If the climax on this recording of the Hallelujah chorus doesn't send chills down your spine while simultaneously uplifting your soul, well, I don't know what will! Absolutely magnificent.

It was only natural that Jordi Savall record Händel’s Messiah. His ‘Watermusic’ is already considered a benchmark and he has also signed countless landmark recordings of religious music.
Featuring La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Le Concert des Nations, Jordi Savall, Rachel Redmond (soprano), Damien Guillon (counter tenor) Nicholas Mulroy (tenor) Matthias Winckhler (bass).
This new album is the Christmas 2019 must have.

Messiah, HWV 56 (1992 Remastered Version) , Part 1: And the glory of the Lord (chorus: Andante), King's College Choir, Cambridge/Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Sir David Willcocks.

Georg Friedrich Händels Messiah wurde am 13. April 1742 erstmals in Dublin aufgeführt und danach mehrmals umgearbeitet. Doch es existiert eine frühere Fassung von 1741, die auf den beiden autographen Partituren des Komponisten basiert. Der Musikwissenschaftler Malcolm Bruno hat diese Urfassung rekonstruiert. So agiert hier nun ein eigenständiger Holzbläsersatz aus zwei Oboen und Fagotten, und auch bei den Arien kann man Neues entdecken. Bruno ist von der Ersteinspielung des „Ur-Messiah“ begeistert und hoff t, „dass der Zuhörer die Erfahrung macht, den Messiah so zu hören, als ob er zum allerersten Mal aufgeführt würde, als ob die Tinte von Händels Manuskript noch feucht wäre.“ George Frideric Handel‘s Messiah was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and subsequently reworked several times. However, an earlier version from 1741 exists, based on the composer‘s two autograph scores. The musicologist Malcolm Bruno has reconstructed this original version and published it with Breitkopf & Härtel. In this version, an independent woodwind section consisting of two oboes and bassoons can be heard, and there are also new discoveries to be made in the arias. Bruno is enthusiastic about the first recording of the „Ur-Messiah“ and hopes „that the listener has the experience of hearing the Messiah as if for a fi rst time, as if the ink of Handel’s manuscript were still wet“.

Handel’s Messiah is already very well-represented on the CD market, with dozens of existing recordings and new productions appearing at regular intervals. Yet this is a very special version, carefully crafted, by the Prague-based Collegium Vocale and Collegium 1704 under the baton of Vaclav Luks, founder of the ensemble and one of the most exciting conductors of the Baroque and Classical repertoire.

Following several acclaimed albums of Handel’s operatic and choral masterpieces (including a triumphant Giulio Cesare with Natalie Dessay as Cleopatra and the oratorio La Resurrezione with British soprano Kate Royal), French harpsichordist and conductor Emmanuelle Haïm at last brings her fresh, expressive approach to Messiah.

Of all English oratorios Handel’s Messiah has always been the most overwhelmingly popular. It is the least theatrical of his oratorios and the most purely sacred in its choice of subject matter. The vivid choral writing- there are more choruses in Messiah than in any other Handel oratorio- coupled with the expressive density of the solo arias, have ensured its status as one of the greatest choral masterpieces in the Western canon. Since winning the Leopold Stokowski Conducting Award and conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, Edward Polochick has attracted international attention as an orchestral, operatic, and choral conductor. He is the founding Artistic Director of Concert Artists of Baltimore since 1987.