SITE RATING: 3/10
SITE
REVIEW: Listening to
Beecham's 1947 Messiah is a peek into
performance styles of the 1940s, which was
heavily sentimental, florid, and, in a way,
very attuned to "Hollywood" views of classical
music. The singers have an overblown,
presentational style of singing which is
completely foreign to modern audiences, but
can be easily typed by listening to the
expensive Hollywood musicals of the day, which
were unsurpassed in opulence and splendor.
The singers here sound as if they could
have been carried right off of MGM's studio
lot, with Elsie Suddaby, Marjorie Thomas,
Heddle Nash, and Trevor Antony sounding, not
as if they were "classical" artists, but
rather that they were auditioning for various
parts in The
Wizard of Oz. Honestly - listen
to "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" and see if
you don't picture Billie Burke's Glinda The
Good Witch singing it, or to "Behold, I Tell
You Mystery" and see if it doesn't remind you
of Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion. It's a
very odd sensation. They have a
distinctive fluttery tone to their vibratos,
and a naturalness to their vocal qualities
that reveals their unfamiliarity with
electronic recording techniques. In a
way, it makes this a strange, surreal
listening experience, humorous in a way, but
so out-of-tune with modern training and
audience expectations, that I suspect this
recording will have only academic interest to
Messiah
fans; it's fascinating to listen to for all
its stylistic and idiosyncratic differences,
but not of great merit otherwise. The
Biddulph Recording, which I believe is now out
of print, contains three CDs, preserving the
original LP release, with the third CD filled
out with contemporary recordings by Beecham,
while the Classica D'Oro release squeezes the
program on to two CDs.
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