SITE RATING: 2/10
SITE
REVIEW: One of the
sloppiest Messiahs
I've ever had the misfortune to hear, I'm not
entirely sure how this particular recording
was a.) produced, seeing as its the Oratorio
Society of New York, recorded in Warsaw,
Poland (?), and b.) why it's been reissued
both in 1994 and 2009? From it's
credentials, you'd think that this was a
pretty reliable group, right? Not so
fast. The Oratorio Society of New York,
circa 1990 sounds very shabby, more of a
neighborhood Community Choir than anything
else, and not a very good one at that.
The sound, for being a studio recording,
is very muddy, and it doesn't sound as if any
effort was made to correct mistakes of any
kind - notes go flat, melismas are all over
the place, vowels and consonants are similarly
unfocused, and the soloists are definitely NOT
world class, (and this despite their singing
in a different continent!) The whole
effort smells of "quick and cheap" - and it
leads me to suspect that this was a
thrown-together project done on the fly.
Woodside's tempos are generally on the
mark, but this recording has no right to stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with
professionally-produced and performed Messiahs.
Pass this one by.
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