SITE RATING: 2/10
SITE REVIEW:
Heidelberg
College (now University) of Tiffin, Ohio, published this private-label
Messiah highlights CD in 1998, taken from their December 1997
concert. I wish I could say that the concert is a credit to their
music department of the time, but the College-Community Orchestra's
playing is riddled with out-of-tune instruments, leaden playing, and
workman-like performances. Similarly, the choir, which is
unaccountably (and heavily) padded with "College Alumni, Area High
Schools, and Community Singers" (i.e., basically anyone they could suck
in off the street) is similarly hampered by disunified, inexperienced
singing. Conductor Barbara Specht certainly had her work cut out
for her with such disparate forces, and sadly, the direction is
similarly uninspired, but, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's
ear, and I'll hope that she enjoyed more proficient artists under her
baton than she had access to on this occasion. The soloists are
never more than adequate; tenor Gregory B. Rike has a thin, stretched
tessitura with an airy texture, but pleasant overall tone. Bass
Mark W. McNalley is similarly thin in his lower register, and makes me
long for a more passionate, involved reading. Alto Lisa D. Bruns
is hamstrung by the orchestra's horrific playing on "O Thou that
tellest good tidings to Zion" but is similarly handicapped by her own
pale reading, and soprano Soo Yeon Kim is constantly sharp, and her
too-bright and fluttery vibrato dooms her moments. Why anyone
would think this performance merited a recorded memento is beyond me;
the singing, playing and overall performance is one that I think most
hearers would want to forget.
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