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Music Review | ’Messiah’: Dipping Happily Into Two ?Messiah? WorldsThe season’s iconography is more about Christmases past than Christmas itself. We don’t seem to mind placing the Holy Family on the snowy streets of Dickens’s London or watching the Three Wise Men as they jingle all the way to the baby Jesus. You could think about “Messiah” at the Riverside Church on Wednesday in the same way. Readers’ Opinions Forum: Classical MusicHandel’s oratorio dates from 1741 but leads two contemporary lives. For the under-50 devotee, the traditional “Messiah” is likely to be Handel rediscovered — fleet, light, powered by period instruments and sung with a bell-like, vibrato-free delivery. For the weathered listener, the real “Messiah” will be Edwardian-size choruses, heavyweight symphony orchestras and tempos slowed by a consequent pull of gravity. The New York Philharmonic (or part of it), Joe Miller’s elegant Westminster Symphonic Choir, four ardent soloists and the conductor Harry Bicket were dipping happily into both worlds. There were modern instruments in small numbers. Tempos did not loiter, as they used to. Mr. Bicket asked for and got deftly accented movement from everyone. Dominique Labelle’s soprano, to take one example, offered a department store of styles — straightened tones sung to choirboy effect, elsewhere operatic vibrato, and always intricate Baroque ornamentation for repeated lines. Neal Davies’s bass-baritone leaped at the splendid opportunities Handel leaves him, offering a hair-raising, barn-burning delivery backed by excellent technique and judgment. Bruce Ford took the difficult tenor part. Stephanie Blythe’s enormous mezzo-soprano voice was all the more amazing for its musical exactitude. The performance was no less touching for its so-called old- fashionedness. The details were there, including Sheryl Staples’s fine violin playing and Matthew Muckey’s fearless trumpet solo. But general good will informed the evening. The high ceiling created an agreeable choral haze for high treble passages, but contributed to an occasional difficulty in hearing where Mr. Ford’s pitches were headed. Your “Messiah,” the authentic “Messiah,” will be the one that was there when you came on the scene. (For more on the subject, read “The Enigma of Arrival” by V. S. Naipaul.) Younger listeners touched by the early-music movement will think of an older Handel. Older listeners may never escape the impressions of their youth. For them, the ghosts of Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent lurk in the shadows, ready to seduce the impure heart. Tag CloudExternal InformationAdditional InformationNorth Koreans Welcome Symphonic Diplomacy...Music: From Salzburg, a Mozart-a-thon... Best of All Possible Worlds, Updated for the Paris Stage... Music Review | Maude Maggart: Perspectives on Womanhood, in a Dialectic of Desir... Where Am I?News Main Page - Business - Music Review | ’Messiah’: Dipping Happily Into Two ?Messiah? Worlds |
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