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SITE RATING:  5/10 SITE REVIEW:  This lengthy excerpts disc, taken from a 1952 release by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Ernest MacMillan, was originally released by RCA Victor on three LPs, and reissued on CD by Attic Records in celebration of the Choir's 100th Anniversary.  A clean mono transfer, this performance is very much of the times, with slow, chunky tempos, rather square singing, and a blunt, rather than smooth approach.  There's little here to entice the modern ear - tenor Jon Vickers' tone is bright and forward, but more declamatory than heartfelt; bass James Milligan sings with more tenderness, and a pleasing timbre, but the mono sound reveals its limitations here, with distortion in the upper ranges.  Soprano Lois Marshall possesses a lovely natural, unaffected tone, while contralto Mary Palmateer sings with perhaps too much gravitas in her brief appearance.  The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir sings with more force than feeling, while the Toronto Symphony Orchestra seems hedged in by the blocked tempos encouraged by MacMillan - and MacMillan makes some odd directing choices as well, such as slowing down the tempo during "For unto us a Child is born" when approaching the word "wonderful".  Much of the attributed faults here can be attributed to the recording technology of the times, which required greater emphasis taken in order to get greater fidelity; his contemporaries suffered much the same setbacks in similar recordings of the day.  But to modern ears, it sounds painfully forced and unnatural.  There appears to be some minor source damage evident, with some fluctuations and drop-outs audible, which may account for why this recording hasn't received a full digital release.  Of curiosity to collectors of historical Messiahs, but otherwise missable.

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