Epicurus.com - Handel - Messiah / Harper, Watts, Wakefield, Shirley-Quirk, LSO, C. Davis

List Price: $17.98
Our Price: $14.99
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Manufacturer: Philips

Average Customer Rating:

Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028943835626
Label: Philips
Manufacturer: Philips
Number Of Discs: 2
Publisher: Philips
Release Date: 1993-11-09
Studio: Philips

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Editorial Reviews:

This 1966 reading from Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony is a classic. A noble, compassionate interpretation, it represents a very successful melding of the English oratorio tradition with the then-emerging notion of an authentic performance style emphasizing lightness of texture and firm rhythmic underpinning. In its latest incarnation, as a Philips "Duo" offering (two CDs for the price of one), it's an especially good bargain. --Ted Libbey

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: subdued and disappointing
Comment: From the opening Sinfonia, this Messiah is far too subdued. While it may be nuanced and even, it lacks passion, grandeur and any sense of the sacred, and has little narrative drive. The Choruses, except for the Hallelujah Chorus, have little majesty. There is also something wrong with the sound mix. I can't quite put my finger on it but somehow the bass-treble balance is just off. I tried the special anniversary 24 bit rerelease and found that the sound of it was, oddly enough, even worse. I would instead very highly recommend Sir Colin Davis' other recording of The Messiah, with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. It is a bit difficult to find but just spectacular.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Safe Harbor
Comment: Maestro Davis employs modern instruments, a relatively small chorus and orchestra and first rate soloists in a performance that's not wacky, weird or wayward. Sincere expression and tasteful ornamentation are emphasized-there aren't any life and death struggles going on here. Yet the spiritual elements are not slighted-consider for example, Heather Harper's wonderful "I know my Redeemer liveth.." She sings with great purity and no artifice. The chorus has good diction and is vigorous when it needs to be. Sir Colin's conducting flows and allows the listener to get "caught up" in the performance. He doesn't impose any particular interpretative viewpoint but allows this masterpiece to speak for itself. For forty years this has been a top choice.

Customer Rating:

Summary: The best Messiah
Comment: This classic recording still stands the test of time. Sir Colin Davis leads his small ensemble of singers and players in a polished and clearly articulated rendition of this often heard oratorio. Every voice and every instrument is heard in a perfect blend. No massive chorus and orchestra with a muddy sound on this recording. I have owned this version since it came out on a LP recording when I was in college. It is still the best.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Fabulous Pre-Digital "Desert Island" Messiah
Comment: I must say that the "Messiah" was very off-putting to me for a very long time when I first started collecting and listening to classical music, as I had only ever heard a couple excerpts from it, and those with deadly frequency, like the Hallelujah Chorus, which I "hated", so I stayed away from it like the plague.

This recording,(other than the Hallelujah Chorus, and one or two other bits), was my first exposure to this great work. I researched for a long time to find the "best" recording available, and at the time (late 60's) this was IT!

It still is, although through the years my favorite "Messiah" has "graduated", become more "brilliant", become more "soft", more "strident", more "original instrument", more "chamber-like", etc. I have loved and revered many recordings since discovering this one. Currently, the John Butt on Linn records truly is the best recording I've ever heard, followed closely by the Renee Jacobs. (See my "Messiah" Listmania list, by all means.)

BUT, this review is of the Colin Davis recording, and I will get back to it.

This recording is like an old "school friend", and I come back to be with it very often. I still treasure this effort on the part of Colin Davis and his soloists, truly a "benchmark" recording. I see here that this has been remastered on the "Philips 50" series, and I am sure that I will seek out this new pressing for my shelves, as I will ALWAYS want a copy of this old friend nearby.

Whether you are coming to the Messiah for the first time, or have many recordings of it, by all means pick this great treasure up for your collection...you will discover a truly great Desert Island disc. Happy Listening! ~operabruin

Customer Rating:

Summary: a standard Messiah
Comment: The Philips Classics series has many appealing features, not least of which is good value. This series typically offers two CDs for the price of about one-and-a-half. They feature top-rank and often legendary performers. Finally, they are digitally remastered recordings from the sixties and seventies, many of which rank as standard-bearing readings of the classical canon.

This 1966 London Symphony Orchestra performance of Handel's incalculably beautiful MESSIAH is robust in the old-school, English, big-voiced, fully-orchestrated, modern-instrument manner. This is the MESSIAH that first put the lump in your throat and made you wonder at how regular folks stood when 'Hallelujah' came up.

I find it almost breathtaking to sit here - again - among the speakers and come to grips with the fact that the pure sound emerging is from a recording that took place *four decades* ago. Harper, Watts, Wakefield, and Shirley-Quirk are in marvelous voice.

Do yourself a favor. Break the Messiah-at-Christmas routine (though *do* listen at Christmas), buy this CD, and sit down with it for an evening at some atypical time of year, say, when an autumnal nip is in the air.

Handel's uniquely musical hearing of a Christian retelling of the biblical prophets and their adumbration in the New Testament that was conventional in its day is a work for the ages. Resonant, effortlessly intertextual, energized by both faith and art, MESSIAH is one of Christendom's jewels.

It is nearly a fool's errand to review Messiah in a few paragraphs, even more when the reading is question is that of Sir Colin Davis and a throaty English cast.

Simply impeccable.

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