| RECORDINGS |
|
| LABEL: |
SONY |
| CATALOG
NUMBER: |
SM2K
60205 |
| UPC
NUMBER: |
074646020524 |
| NUMBER OF DISCS: |
2 |
| RUNNING TIME: |
118:24 |
| YEAR
RECORDED: |
1958 |
| CD
RELEASE
DATE: |
MARCH
31,
1998 |
| CONDUCTOR: |
LEONARD
BERNSTEIN |
| ORCHESTRA: |
NEW
YORK
PHILHARMONIC |
| CHOIR: |
WESTMINSTER
CHOIR |
| SOPRANO: |
ADELE
ADDISON |
| COUNTERTENOR: |
RUSSELL
OBERLIN |
| TENOR: |
DAVID
LLOYD |
| BARITONE: |
WILLIAM
WARFIELD |
|
| AUDIO SAMPLES |
HIGHLIGHTS |
OTHER
RELEASES |
|
  
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DISC ONE
1. I. Overture 05:51
2. II. Recitative. Comfort ye, my
people 03:30
3. III. Air. Every valley shall be
exalted 03:27
4. IV. And the glory of the Lord 03:03
5. V. Recitative. Thus saith the Lord
01:44
6. VI. Air. But who may abide 04:23
7. VII. And He shall purify 02:36
8. VIII. Recitative. Behold, a virgin
shall conceive 00:37
9. IX. Air. O thou that tellest good
tidings to Zion 05:23
10. XII. For unto us a Child is born
03:52
11. XIII. Pastoral Symphony (Pifa)
03:57
12. XIVa. Recitative. There were
shepherds 00:20
13. XIVb. Recitative. And, lo! the
angel of the Lord came upon them 00:29
14. XV. Recitative. And the angel said
unto them 00:48
15. XVI. Recitative. And suddenly
there was with the angel 00:16
16. XVII. Glory to God 01:51
17. XVIII. Air. Rejoice greatly, O
daughter of Zion 05:10
18. XIX. Recitative. Then shall the
eyes of the blind be opened 00:38
19. XX. Air. He shall feed His flock
06:40
20. XXXIII. Lift up your heads 03:03
21. XL. Air. Why do the nations 02:35
22. XLI. Let us break their bonds
asunder 01:48
23. XLII. Recitative. He that dwelleth
in heaven 00:19
24. XLIII. Air. Thou shalt break them
02:07
25. XLIV. Hallelujah! 04:48
|
DISC TWO
1. XXII. Behold the Lamb
of God 04:08
2. XXIII. Air. He was
despised 06:17
3. XXV. And with His stripes
we are healed 03:51
4. XXVI. All we like sheep
have gone astray 04:31
5. XXVII. Recitative. All
they that see Him 00:50
6. XXVIII. He trusted in God
02:16
7. XXIX. Recitative. Thy
rebuke hath broken His heart 02:00
8. XXX. Air. Behold, and see
if there be any sorrow 02:01
9. XXXI. Recitative. He was
cut off 00:32
10. XLV. Air. I know that my
Redeemer liveth 08:05
11. XLVI. Since by man came
death 02:09
12. XLVII. Recitative.
Behold, I tell you a mystery 00:58
13. XLVIII. Air. The trumpet
shall sound 03:58
14. LIII. Worthy is the Lamb;
Blessings and honour, glory and
power, be unto Him 07:17
|
|
SITE RATING: 4/10
SITE
REVIEW: Leonard
Bernstein wins the "I'm A Genius Too!" booby
prize for his
remarkable chutzpah in his one-of-a-kind
interpretation of Handel's Messiah.
In what can only be explained by a
towering act of hubris,
"He-Who-Could-Do-No-Wrong" Bernstein decided
to re-order Messiah's sections into what he
considered more aesthetically pleasing halves:
the "Christmas" half forming the first disc,
and the "Easter" half, which fills out the
second disc. Now, I'm all for
artistic license, and some may say that this
rearrangement is more dramatically pleasing,
but in another sense, it reveals what low
regard Messiah
had fallen into with the musical cognoscenti
of the times. But that's not the only
surprise found on this performance.
Bernstein strips the Messiah
of all of its Baroque parentage, and recasts
it as a Romantic epic, with huge, florid,
Wagnerian swells and crashes (and that's just
in the overture!) that continues throughout
the performance. Well, OK, if you
enjoyed Beecham's pyrotechnics, you might
enjoy this as well. But the real thorn
in this album is the performers - The
Westminster Choir is the shoddiest-sounding
choir I've ever heard tackle the Messiah
outside of a amateur community choir - it
sounds as if each singer is attempting to
drown out their neighbor, with competing
vibrato crashing and tripping over each other
in (almost) comic ways. Those who damn
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's performance on
the Ormandy disc
will realize that compared to the Westminster
Choir, they sound like the soul of restraint.
And Bernstein's tempos fluctuate so
wildly, and with so little logic, that several
numbers sound frantically out of control, with
"Why Do The Nations?" receiving a desperate
reading that leaves poor William Warfield
sounding as if he was soon to be suffering
from the dry heaves, while the "Hallelujah"
chorus is performed with all the dramatic
angst of Beethoven's Fifth. Finally,
despite Sony's best remastering efforts, this
is one of the muddiest-sounding Messiah's
on disc, with none of the presence or
immediacy of other recordings. Little
wonder that shortly after this was
committed to disc, the label commissioned the
Ormandy Messiah,
which quickly out-performed (both critically
and commercially) Bernstein's fiasco.
~ BDW
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