H & H Messiah — Sunday, December 2, 2012

Classical New England will broadcast and stream the Handel and Haydn Society's performance of Handel's "Messiah" live from Symphony Hall this afternoon at 3:00 Eastern Time. Definitely worth hearing, IMO. You can go here for CNE's links to program notes as well as information about other seasonal programming.

H & H's page about Messiah has further links and introduces the performance as follows:

A tradition for 159 years—make it yours! Harry Christophers conducts the Period Instrument Orchestra, Chorus, and internationally acclaimed soloists in Handel’s dramatic masterwork. Don’t miss Canadian superstars soprano Karina Gauvin and countertenor Daniel Taylor, British tenor extraordinaire James Gilchrist, and Boston's own premier baritone Sumner Thompson in this season’s unique rendition of this Boston tradition. No holiday season is complete without Handel’s stunning oratorio.

Christmas Radio/Webstream

December 24 at 10:00 a.m. Boston Time ( = 3:00 p.m. England Time) WCRB will give a live broadcast/stream of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College Cambridge. So if you have no other source for it, you can listen there.

And then in the evening, at 8:00 Boston time, they'll present the Handel & Haydn's performance of Messiah, recorded earlier this month in Symphony Hall.

Finally, Bach's Christmas Oratorio will be broadcast/streamed in a recording by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Ricardo Chailly. It seems it will be done in three installments: Friday at 3:00 p.m.; Saturday at 10:00 a.m.; and Sunday at 10:00 a.m.

Merry Christmas!

Messiah

     Yesterday (Sunday December 6) I went to the Handel and Haydn Society's performance of Handel's "Messiah" at Symphony Hall in Boston. They performed music from Messiah as part of their first concert, on Christmas, 1815; the first complete performance of Messiah in the United States on Christmas, 1818;and they've performed the whole oratorio every year beginning in 1854. So they should be pretty good at it. And they are. They do "Historically informed perfomances," meaning that they use instruments like those of Handel's day, and a small orchestra (24 players) and chorus (30 singers).

     Unfortunately, I realized after the concert that I was approaching it more as a musical than as a religious event. Musically, it was satisfying, although the soloists didn't have much power on their low notes. But it didn't notice anything unattractive about the singing and playing.

     The program states that "The performances are being recorded for broadcast locally on 99.5 FM All Classical (a service of WGBH) on December 20 and will be featured nationally on American Public Media's Performance Today." (I don't have a link for APM, but I'm sure you can find them easily enough.) They don't say what time the 99.5 FM broadcast will be, but I'm confident it will be either 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. So if you follow the link, you should be able to hear their webstream.