Messiah

Jordi Savall's prolific output of recordings on Alia Vox is hard to pigeonhole because his expansive repertoire runs from some of the most obscure early music of the Old and New Worlds, to well-established classics like George Frederick Handel's Messiah. Recorded live at a December, 2017 concert in the Chapelle Royale du Chateau de Versailles, this performance of Messiah is based on the 1741 autograph score in the British Library in London, essentially re-creating the Dublin version, with restored oboe parts taken from the part-books for the 1754 Foundling Hospital version, and with four vocal soloists instead of Handel's original group of nine.

George Frideric Handel - Messiah
Robert Shaw Chorale and Orchestra / Robert Shaw
EAC+LOG+CUE | 2x CD, FLAC: 723 MB | Artwork: 35 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: RCA Red Seal # 082876-62317-2 | Country/Year: US 2004, 1966
Genre: Classical, Historical Recording | Style: Baroque, Oratorio, Sacred

Recorded in 1966, Robert Shaw's Grammy Award-winning performance of Handel's Messiah marks an important turning-point in this work's interpretation, clearly moving away from the ponderous, overly reverential style of early twentieth century renditions and pointing toward the leaner versions of the 1970s onwards, which follow Baroque-period practices. (…) Evenly divided between two discs, this recording of Messiah is complete, and it is preferred over RCA's 1992 excerpt album The Great Choruses from Messiah.

Sir Thomas Beecham's Messiah has become notorious among baroque purists (like this writer) for embodying the worst excesses of pre-1960 Handel performance: ponderous tempos, stentorian opera singers, huge lumbering choruses and orchestras, crashing cymbals, clanging triangles…. Well, we'll need a new straw man: this performance is Wonderful…