| BOOKS |
|
| TITLE: |
A
TEXTUAL COMPANION TO HANDEL'S
MESSIAH |
| AUTHOR: |
WATKINS
SHAW |
| PUBLISHER: |
NOVELLO
PUBLISHING LTD |
| ISBN
(HARDCOVER): |
N/A |
| ISBN (PAPERBACK): |
0853600333 |
| UPC/EAN: |
9780853600336 |
| LCCN: |
N/A |
| YEAR: |
1965
(REVISED 1982) |
| SERIES: |
N/A |
| PAGES: |
233
P. |
| PUB.
LOCATION: |
LONDON,
ENGLAND |
| DDC: |
N/A |
| EXCERPT: |
CLICK HERE
FOR SAMPLE PAGE (.PDF) |
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| DESCRIPTION:
This book provides an ample background
of textual and historical information to
Handel's Messiah. Though it arises from
the author's work involved in his own edition
in vocal and full score (Novello), its
relevance is by no means confined to that
edition. A survey of Handel's singers
and of manuscript sources of the work provides
the basis for an investigation into the
alterations and development to which the work
was subject after its original conception.
The alternative versions of numerous
movements are also reviewed and thus a certain
amount of light is shed on the form assumed by
the earliest printed copies. After an
important discussion of textual authority and
a commentary on the readings of individual
movements, the author concludes with a
statement of editorial aims and practices.
|
SITE RATING: 10/10
SITE
REVIEW: Shaw compiled the
data for this book when compiling his own
Novello edition of the Messiah score, which is
still in use today. NOT for casual or
light reading, Watkins Shaw's intensive A Textual
Companion to Handel's Messiah is a
dense, super-fine analysis examining the
authoritative manuscript sources for Messiah,
and the differences between these sources,
(analyzed in excruciatingly minute detail).
Also, the singers involved in each
production and their various abilities (where
known) are examined for their impact on the
various changes, secondary sources are also
attended to, early printed copies, the
Foundling Hospital version is examined, as
well as textual authorities for each of the
sources. It's safe to say that Watkins
Shaw is the father of the modern practice of
recording a specific edition of Messiah, with
numerous editions of the "Dublin" Messiah
versus the "Foundling Hospital" version
rattling consumer's brains. All of these
variants can be wholly or in part attributed
to Shaw's meticulous work, with his notating
of each change and variant, and while
painstaking and exacting in its attention to
detail, this book can hardly be recommended to
anyone except serious musicologists, and
conductors who wish to perform an historical
recreation of a certain year's Messiah.
Numerous example and fold-out-charts are
included, but the reader is handicapped by not
having the same sources at their fingertips as
Shaw had. This book should also be of
great help to those who love to pick apart the
various editions of Messiah and revel
in minutia. Currently out-of-print, but
can be found at most University libraries, or
purchased relatively inexpensively through
Amazon UK: Textual
and
Historical Companion to Handel's Messiah
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