The recordings I own

As familiar with Messiah as I feel, there are only 2 recordings in my house and I don't listen to either of them with regularity. As I mentioned, I hear plenty of Messiah performed live in this area as it is. About these 'old' recordings:

The first is billed as "Handel, arr. Mozart: Messiah” Huddersfield Choral Society, BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Harry Christophers. 1997. I received this recording from BBC Music Magazine several years ago. If you are not familiar with the Mozart "edition", the trombones make quite an impression! This is particularly startling at the start of the bass aria "The People That Walked in Darkness." Hearing music so familiar but with this unexpected burst of sound reminds me of the first time I heard Robert Levin’s completion of Mozart's Requiem.

One notable performance detail in this English recording: some of the most complex choral writing is turned over to the soloists. For example, in "For Unto Us a Child is Born", the soloists begin the vocal lines, joined by the full chorus at "Wonderful... ." I had never heard such a thing before nor have I come across it anywhere else. It does add an element of structure to a chorus that may be slogged through laboriously by unpolished singers. Hearing this, I am tempted to show mercy to my own singers and spare them from those florid lines by assigning them to our soloists. I will have to do more research into this practice- is this just a Harry Christophers quirk? Or a Huddersfield tradition?

The second recording, which I gained by marriage, is by "Vienna Boys Choir, Chorus Viennensis, and the Academy of London, conducted by Peter Marschik." 1999. Yes, the world famous boys covering the treble voices, a recording my wife saw on a clearance rack and bought as a novelty. This performance has a few quite Romantic tempo changes near the end of choruses... sometimes thoughtfully reflecting the text, but often too abrupt for me.

Our favorite feature of the performance, though, is the round, resonant but slightly accented English the native German-speaking boys sing with. I use this as reinforcement when teaching my own singers about foreign languages and the subtleties of their vowels. When the brilliant-toned soprano sings "Shout! O Daughter of Jerusalem,” the first vowel in the first word is altered just enough to cause gales of laughter among high schoolers and gain a PG-13 rating. What must our Bach cantatas sound like to them?