SITE RATING: 4/10
SITE
REVIEW: I'm a big fan
of conductor Stephen Cleobury and the Choir of
King's College, Cambridge, so I have really
been looking forward to this new recording of
Messiah, which was taken from a live
performance filmed in England and shown in
movie theaters there. But upon hearing the
performance, I was disappointed in a couple of
ways: first, the tempos are much slower than
modern performances, hearkening back to the
ponderous tempos of the 1970s - I prefer my
"Messiah's" to be light and quick, but this
one, despite the small forces gathered, is
taken quite leisurely, not excessively so, but
much more than I prefer.
Second, the soloists have much more weight and
vibrato in their tones than I've heard in a
long while - the soprano and alto soloists
especially are rather thick and ripe, using a
great deal of vibrato, which I abhor in
baroque music - they sound as if they are
fifty years old (not that there's anything
wrong with that) - it's just not what I enjoy
for this period of music. There is some good
here to report - the Choir of King's College
is recorded magnificently, with much more
clarity and separation than I've heard before,
although the boy sopranos are not as precise
in their melismas as other recordings I've
heard.
Overall, this is a strange recording; it seems
to ignore the revolution in baroque music of
the last 20 years, and hearkens back to
earlier, slower, and, in my opinion, duller
Messiah's of years past. ~ BDW
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