'Tis (almost) the Season

Wandering through London's Belgravia (a rare event for me) I came across a notice in an upmarket wine merchants: 'Customers, please note: we shall be closing at 5.00 pm on Tuesday 4th November to allow our staff the opportunity to enjoy a well-deserved Christmas party.' Chistmas comes earlier every year, and already the supermarkets are glittering with festive delights. With this in mind, and pausing only to wish the staff at Belgravia's Jeroboam's a happy and profitable Yuletide, I shall mark the first day of November with the first of a series of Blogs discussing vocal works (including opera) associated with Christmas .

We begin, perhaps inevitably, with Handel's 'Messiah'. In many ways, it's perfectly appropriate to write about 'Messiah' in November as, while it is most associated with Christmas and Easter, its huge popularity in the UK, and unique place in the British psyche, means that it could be, and indeed is, performed throughout the year. In fact, it is only the first part of three which is concerned with the Christmas story and here, as with the rest of the piece, events are treated philosophically rather than in a narrative manner; 'Messiah' is a meditation on the Christmas and Easter stories, not a retelling of them.

Before discussing the bewildering range of recordings available, I'd like to talk about the place of 'Messiah' in my own musical and intellectual development. I come from a musical family in that my father and my maternal grandparents were accomplished amateur singers and I was encouraged with my own singing after my voice broke to a moderately pleasing baritone. I was fortunate to attend Cathays High School in Cardiff, where Cifford Bunford, a charismatic music teacher and a well known tenor and choral conductor, spotted some potential in me and encouraged my vocal ambitions. Joining Llanishen Choral Society, conducted by the legendary Madame Vera Williams-Sadd, gave me the opportunity to sing some of the mainstream choral respertoire, including 'Messiah' and, after leaving school, I returned to sing the bass solos in a concert of 'Messiah' extracts which took place only a few days after the death of my father. My mother was suspicious of music she didn't 'know' but certainly 'knew' 'Messiah', after growing up with her bass and contralto parents and the work was a venerated part of her cultural DNA. We went to a performance at the New Theatre Cardiff in the early 1970s when the 'authentic' movement was beginning to make its presence felt, and the soprano added some rather modest vocal decoration to 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' and my mother was outraged thinking she had gone wrong. My explanation of authentic performance practice cut no ice: 'She certainly didn't improve it!' my mother sniffed.

I later sang 'Messiah' on a good number of occasions, as both tenor and bass soloist. At one performance I was given 'But who may abide?' originally scored for bass but more usually allocated to the alto. My alto colleague was not at all happy and made her views very plain. The soprano, trying to restore harmony, mentioned that the last time she sang 'Messiah', eminent bass Christopher Keyte sang the air in question. 'Well, of course, he would have sung it very well!' retorted the alto. Ironically, when I became a tenor, I shared a 'Messiah' platform with Chris Keyte, but the contentious air was given to the alto...

My most intimidating 'Messiah' was singing the tenor solos at Huddersfield Town Hall, with the Huddersfield Methodist Choir, arch rivals of the rather better known Huddersfield Choral Society. Everywhere I looked 'dicky bird watching pictures of the dead', in this case eminent singers, including Kathleen Ferrier, peered down, disapprovingly, or so it seemed to me. No one actually came out of the choir to say 'Na then, we've got twelve tenors who can sing the solos as well as thee, so don't get above tha sen!', but I felt the weight of history just the same...

Another memorable 'Messiah' was when, as a young baritone in my first year at RCM, I shared a platform with an even younger contralto, Catherine Wyn-Rogers. Catherine's star quality was already evident, and after her arrival at RCM the following year she quickly established herself as one of the finest British singers of her generation. The rest, as they say, is history...She is the alto soloist in Harry Christophers' recording with The Sixteen (see below). One other memory of that 'Messiah' was a review I received which claimed bass soloists in the work had to choose between power and accuracy. The reviewer failed to say which of these, if either, I achieved!

I am also interested in references to 'Messiah' in literature. Bill Naughton's 1959 play 'Spring and Port Wine' is rarely performed now but it was made into a successful film in 1970 with James Mason as stern northern working class patriarch Rafe Crompton. Rafe buys an expensive new overcoat so that he can be appropriately dressed when he attends a performance of 'Messiah', but his wife pawns the coat in order to give money to an impoverished neighbour. A family schism follows but harmony is eventually restored, lierally and metaphorically as Rafe's daughter (played by Susan George in the film - this might cause a frisson for readers of a certain age) sings 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' to Rafe's accompaniment in the family's front parlour. The north of England also provides the setting for J.B. Priestley's play 'When We Are Married'. Three couples are celebrating their silver weddings: they were married by the same clergyman, in the same chapel on the same day, but the three men, prominent elders of Lane End chapel, break off the celebrations to read the riot act to the chapel organist, Gerald Forbes, whom they intend to sack because he is not only a womaniser but, much worse, a southerner and far too 'lah di dah'. The performance of 'Messiah' he has just conducted is also a cause of dissatisfaction.

PARKER: Then look at his Messiah. I said to him myself. ‘I know it's a Christmas piece. but you've got to get in quick afore the others.'

HELLIWELL:  Right, Albert. After end of November, there's been so many of them, you might as well take your Messiah and throw it into t’ canal.

PARKER: And look what happened. Hillroad Baptist gave Messiah. Salem gave Messiah Tong Congregational gave Messiah, Picklebrook Wesleyans gave Messiah. And where was Lane End?

SOPPITT: Well, when we did get it, it was a good one.

PARKER:  I'm not saying it wasn't, but by that time, who cares? But anyhow, all that's the detail; point is we can't have any carrying on, can we?

American poet Mark Doty considers the sociological and cultural importance of 'Messiah' at some length.

Messiah (Christmas Portions)

A little heat caught

in gleaming rags,

in shrouds of veil,

   torn and sun-shot swaddlings:

over the Methodist roof,

two clouds propose a Zion

of their own, blazing

   (colors of tarnish on copper)

against the steely close

of a coastal afternoon, December,

while under the steeple

   the Choral Society

prepares to perform

Messiah, pouring, in their best

blacks and whites, onto the raked stage.

   Not steep, really,

but from here,

the first pew, they’re a looming

cloudbank of familiar angels:

   that neighbor who

fights operatically

with her girlfriend, for one,

and the friendly bearded clerk

   from the post office

 —tenor trapped

in the body of a baritone? Altos

from the A&P, soprano

   from the T-shirt shop:

today they’re all poise,

costume and purpose

conveying the right note

   of distance and formality.

Silence in the hall,

anticipatory, as if we’re all

about to open a gift we’re not sure

   we’ll like;

how could they

compete with sunset’s burnished

oratorio? Thoughts which vanish,

   when the violins begin.

Who’d have thought

they’d be so good? Every valley,

proclaims the solo tenor,

   (a sleek blonde

 I’ve seen somewhere before

—the liquor store?) shall be exalted,

and in his handsome mouth the word

   is lifted and opened

 into more syllables

than we could count, central ah

dilated in a baroque melisma,

   liquefied; the pour

of voice seems

to make the unplaned landscape

the text predicts the Lord

   will heighten and tame.

This music

demonstrates what it claims:

glory shall be revealed. If art’s

   acceptable evidence,

mustn’t what lies

behind the world be at least

as beautiful as the human voice?

   The tenors lack confidence,

and the soloists,

half of them anyway, don’t

have the strength to found

   the mighty kingdoms

these passages propose

—but the chorus, all together,

equals my burning clouds,

   and seems itself to burn,

commingled powers

deeded to a larger, centering claim.

These aren’t anyone we know;

   choiring dissolves

 familiarity in an up-

pouring rush which will not

rest, will not, for a moment,

   be still.

Aren’t we enlarged

by the scale of what we’re able

to desire? Everything,

   the choir insists,

 might flame;

inside these wrappings

burns another, brighter life,

   quickened, now,

  by song: hear how

it cascades, in overlapping,

lapidary waves of praise? Still time.

   Still time to change.

This impresses me as a sensitive and knowledgable response to the sort of performance which will be reproduced in many towns, cities and smaller communities in the UK and USA in the run-up to Christmas. Often the tenors will lack confidence and not all soloists will be fully up to the task ('Messiah' is very difficult to do really well, whether you are a soloist or in the choir) but we might be pleasantly surprised by how good the performance sounds. The remarks on the melismas in 'Ev'ry Valley' are spot on:

the pour

   of voice seems

to make the unplaned landscape

the text predicts the Lord

   will heighten and tame.

It is also always interesting to see our friends and neighbours in an unusual context and Doty gently points out the humour of the juxtaposition of the

cloudbank of familiar angels:

who turn out to be

   that neighbor who

fights operatically

with her girlfriend, for one,

and the friendly bearded clerk

   from the post office

 —tenor trapped

in the body of a baritone?

Doty is gay (his best known poetry movingly chronicles the Aids' crisis of the 1980s) and it is his appreciation of the 'sleek blond' tenor's beauty which leads him to a meditation on the power of music to transform us and give hope that we can become better people:

Aren’t we enlarged

by the scale of what we’re able

to desire? Everything,

   the choir insists,

 might flame;

inside these wrappings

burns another, brighter life,

   quickened, now,

  by song: hear how

it cascades, in overlapping,

lapidary waves of praise? Still time.

   Still time to change.

It is now time to turn to the plethora of 'Messiah' recordings available. A website I consulted lists 80 available recordings but this is certainly not definitive. In 1991 Teri Noel Towe (TNT) devotes 40 pages to his consideration of 'Messiah' in 'Choral Music on Record' (CUP ed. Alan Blyth) and lists 76 recordings. Safe to say, we are not lacking choice. Having said that, it seems to me impossible to point to a definitive performance. As I said above, 'Messiah' is very difficult to sing (and I'd imagine, to play) so it requires great voices (and artists) for the solo parts and a really good choir. You may well have a favourite recording already and my remarks are mainly restricted to recordings of the LP era with which I grew up, but, for better or worse, here are my thoughts.

I learnt 'Messiah' from Sir Malcolm Sargent's third recording, with the Huddersfield Choral Society (of course), the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and soloist Elsie Morrison (sop), Marjorie Thomas (alto), Richard Lewis (tenor) and James Milligan (bass) and this epitomises as TNT says, 'Messiah' 'as it was known and loved in the provinces during the decades between the two World Wars... the soloists declaim with imperial vigour, warmth and reverence.' Reverence can be double edged sword in this context: too much and the effect is cloying, too little and a performance can take on a chilly coolness. Here I think the balance is well judged. Suffice to say that these are records my mother and grandfather enjoyed and thus have a special place in my affections. It is interesting to note in passing that my school music teacher Clifford Bunford (see above) remarked that 'Richard Lewis always sounds as if he's got a cold' - and that is quite right!

Sargent's great (and distictly unfriendly) rival on the British music scene in the mid 20th century was Sir Thomas Beecham. Beecham recorded 'Messiah' on three occasions. TNT admires all three and is particularly fond of the second version, recorded in 1947, with Elsie Suddaby, Marjorie Thomas, Heddle Nash, and Trevor Anthony as soloists, the Luton Choral Society and the RPO. This is difficult to get hold of and I'd imagine the rather primitive sound would be off-putting to many, but Nash is a great singer, and the fine Welsh bass Trevor Anthony is too little represented on disc, so this version is well worth seeking out. Beecham's third version of 1959 is one which has aroused a range of violently differing opinions. Many find it anathema because of the extensive and bizarre re-orchestration undertaken by Sir Eugene Goosens (nominally anyway - it seems Beecham was responsible for most of this) which can strike very oddly on the ear. And yet this was Jeremy Summerley's historic recording pick for Radio 3's 'Building a Library' and it is worth bearing with this version's eccentricities for the superb performance by the great Canadian tenor Jon Vickers. Vickers redefined and extended the concept of what it means to be a 'difficult' artist. A homophobe, he refused to sing with counter-tenor James Bowman (a double whammy - Bowman was gay but Vickers didn't like counter-tenors either), he wouldn't sing Tannhauser on religious grounds (probably no one dared suggest to him he might also be wary of the formidable vocal challenges the role presents), he refused to sing the word 'breast' when performing 'Peter Grimes' and I saw him humiliate a colleague singing Swallow in a rehearsal of that opera because he disagreed with his interpretation. And yet, and yet... Vickers inhabitation (performance is too weak a word) of Grimes is the greatest interpretation of any role I've seen on the opera stage and he brings this same total commitment and truthfulness to 'Messiah'. Considering the weight of Vicker's voice, his handling of the melismatic writing in 'Ev'ry Valley' is most impressive but it is in the second part sequence beginning 'All they that see him laugh him to scorn' that Vickers shows the artistry that made him one of the very greatest singers of the twentieth century: in particular his singing of 'Thy rebuke hath broken his heart' is a profoundly moving experience - Vickers actually becomes 'a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief'. This is reverence of a very special kind. His performance is not perfect: the top As in 'Thou shalt break them' are rather yelped, but Vickers is by far my favourite tenor in this music, and the overwhelming reason for including this recording in your 'Messiah' Library. As a brief aside, a priceless story about the genesis of this 'Messiah' deserves repeating. Vickers was recording 'Ev'ry Valley' and felt it was going well. Half way through, Beecham shouted 'Stop, stop, stop!!'. Vickers, disconcerted, turned to the conductor to see what the problem was. Beecham beamed and exclaime 'Vickers! You're fucking marvellous!! From the top please gentlemen.' This is not to say that the performance does not have other impressive elements - bass Giorgio Tozzi gives an excellent account of his music even if the very lively tempo of 'Why do the nations?' does cause him a couple of helter skelter moments, and Jennifer Vyvyan and Monica Sinclair remind us why they had such substantial careers in the three decades after the Second World War. Vyvyan in particular deserves a Blog of her own. I knew she was a favourite of Benjamin Britten but did not realise he changed the spelling of Titania in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' to Tytania in her honour.

All that being said, Beecham's 1959 'Messiah' is far too eccentric to be an overall recommendation, but the 1960s saw two recordings that deserve to be taken rather more seriously. Sir Colin Davis' first recording remains a strong, solid recommendation. The solo quartet of Heather Harper, Helen Watts, John Wakefield and John Shirley-Quirk is almost ideal (Wakefield being a comparative weak link in an otherwise ideal line-up, but he is not at all bad) and LSO orchestral and choral forces give a good account of themselves. That the overall effect is rather old-fashioned might be a positive recommendation to some. Issued at about the same time Sir Charles Mackerras' recording is more historically informed and features Dame Janet Baker as a quite superb contralto soloist. She is joined by counter-tenor Paul Essword (one of the first male altos to be used in a 'Messiah' recording) and they combine wonderfully in 'He shall feed his flock like a shepherd'. Robert Tear is the tenor: musical, technically accomplished and utterly reliable. If he fails to match Vickers' robust beauty he is considerably less etiolated than many other English tenors in this music. Elizabeth Harwood is the stylish soprano and the notably versatile Anglo-Belgian baritone Raimund Herincx contributes a robust if not especially elegant account of the bass solos. Incidentally, the story goes that it took over 90 takes to get a satisfactory 'The trumpet shall sound' - nothing to do with Herincx, baroque trumpet playing was in its comparative infancy and the valveless instrument proved vulnerable to cracking! If the whole now sounds a shade mannered, it remains a fine recording and deserves a place on your virtual or actual shelves.

Mention of Otto Klemperer's 'Messiah' will probably have Handel purists heading for the nearest exit, but this is a version that proves, to me at least, that great music making has no boundaries. Admittedly, some tempi are over deliberate (Ev'ry Valley for example is rather plodding) but I found the whole stylish, often superbly sung and always superbly played. The soloists are an international line-up of eminent opera singers and, if nothing else, offer a welcome alternative to the overly tasteful versions of, let's say, the last twenty years.

To begin with the two less well known: Jerome Hines (Met Opera stalwart and author of the book 'Great Singers on Great Singing) is a real bass and is able to do full justice to the low-lying and not particularly inspired 'The People That Walked in Darkness'. This piece, and I speak from hard-won personal experience, can be a real trial to any 'bass' with the merest hint of baritone in his DNA. Hines sings it to the manner born, and is also very effective in his other music. He hurls his huge voice around the florid writing to exciting effect. Grace Hoffmann, a distinguished Wagnerian, offers gravitas and sensitivity to everything she sings. The soprano, legendary Germanic icon, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf proves rather more contentious: the famous silvery tone is certainly attractive and her way with the text is typically intelligent but even at a very stately tempo she rather smudges the runs in 'Rejoice Greatly' and the whole has a rather coquettish feel that very definitely jars. Nicolai Gedda is the only tenor I've heard in this work who rivals Vickers for sheer quality of tone and the sequence beginning with 'All they that see him' has a nobility and gravitas that is most affecting. Some unidiomatic pronunciation (suhrow rather than sorrow, pitay rather than pity and uhl rather than all for example) might bother others more than it does me. The Philharmonia Chorus makes an impression that can only be described as monumental. This is a version that should be heard at least once; whether you listen to it again is, of course, your choice...

Coming closer to the present day versions conducted by Pinnock, Hickox, Christie, Layton, Butt, Christophers, McCreesh, Hogwood, Willcocks, Cleobury and Gardner are all safe, if far from definitive recommendations. I include the Hogwood recording under suffrance: it is one of TNT's recommendations (RIP - the renowned American critic and record collector died this year) and I know it would be the first choice of many, but for me, this is a performance for those who prefer not to think of singing as a flesh and blood activity. To my ears it sounds synthetic and cold, but I'll defend with my life your right to think otherwise. Jeremy Summerley's choice on 'Building a Library' was the version conducted by Hans Christoph Rademann - I cannot support this - I found the performance soulless and the singing rarely better than competent. If pressed for my personal recommendation I'd suggest the version conducted by Sir Neville Marriner with the forces of St Martin in the Fields. The solo quartet of Elly Ameling, Anna Reynolds, Philip Langridge and Gwynne Howell is pretty much ideal: Ameling sings exquisitely and Howell has the most beautiful bass voice I've heard in this repertoire. Orchestral playing is unfailingly stylish and choral singing simply superb, unsurpassed in my experience. A drawback for some might be the version used ('Messiah' went through a bewildering number of permutations in response to the forces available - Handel was nothing if not pragmatic) and Marriner chose the first London performance of 1743 as his model. This means that some familiar music is missing and other unfamiliar music included. Of course, given that it is easy to locate all the versions I've mentioned and many more besides on your listening platform of choice, this should not be an issue. Gone are the days when an LP or CD purchase was a considerable expense over which to agonise, mistakes being costly in more than one sense.

I should also mention that 'Messiah' has been staged more than once. I have particularly strong memories of Deborah Warner's 2009 production for English National Opera. My wife, Natalie Herman, was in the chorus, and the effect of a large number of top notch professional singers performing from memory, with typical ENO Chorus commitment and accomplishment, and four excellent soloists, Sophie Bevan, Catherine Wyn Rogers (again!), John Mark Ainsley and Brindley Sherratt, was deeply impressive.

So there we are: the choice is yours. Please let me know how far you agree or disagree with my opinions. I'll leave you with a final thought. Beecham was fond of warning his choirs not to sound too pleased that they all 'like sheep have gone astray' but on his third recording the choir sounds positively delighted to have strayed and 'turned every one to his own way'. Even this pleasure seems muted in comparison with Marriner's chorus who seem on the point of bursting into giggles, so taken up are they with the mirth of the moment. This chorus has always puzzled me: why does Handel write such manifestly merry music at this point. Marriner's chorus demonstrate that the number sounds best when joy is unconfined (and they really do sing it brilliantly). Then of course I realised something that has probably always been obvious to my erudite readers: it is essential that this chorus initially sounds as hedonistic as possible, so that the seeringly painful contrast with the final lines 'and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all' is laid bare. We are like sheep: we are thoughtless and easily led. We are also selfish, thinking only of ourselves. But God does not punish us, he allows, or perhaps forces, his only son to be punished in our stead. This point is made earlier: 'Surely he hath born our griefs' and subsequently 'For the transgressions of Thy people was He stricken'. I don't think you need to be Christian to find this extremely affecting.

So there you have it. Many thanks for your patience. Next up, Bach's 'Christmas Oratorio'.