Ignore the music snobs – there’s no right way to play Handel’s ‘Messiah’
Large-scale performances of this seasonal masterpiece are arguably far more authentic, says Ivan Hewett
NIn 1923, this paper damned a ‘lusty’ Royal Albert Hall rendition with faint praise
othing in classical music catches the spirit of Christmas quite as well as Handel’s Messiah. Which is ironic, as the piece isn’t about Christmas at all. It was actually composed for Easter, and the whole narrative of the piece prepares us for the central mystery of the Christian faith: the resurrection of Christ. So if we want properly “authentic” performances of the piece, we really should wait for Easter.
But who cares about “authenticity”? Quite a few people, in fact. But it’s not the “wrong” performance date that irks the authenticists. What really gets them riled up is the way Handel’s great work has often been performed, which according to them is all wrong. The piece as originally performed in Handel’s lifetime had quite small forces – though it’s hard to say exactly how small, as the surviving manuscripts differ among themselves. It’s safe to say that a band of around 20, and a chorus of approximately the same number get us close to a sound Handel would have recognised. That sound was remarkably short-lived, as a fashion for huge performances soon took hold. It began as early as 1784, only a few decades after Handel’s death, when a huge gathering of 525 singers and instrumentalists performed the piece in Westminster Abbey.
By then, Mozart had re-scored the piece adding flutes, clarinets (an instrument Handel would never have heard), horns and trombones. In the 19th century, performances became ever more grand, driven by the increasing size of venues. The Neapolitan immigrant Michael Costa conducted performances of Messiah with thousands in the choir, nearly 500 in the orchestra, and a pair of cymbals to give extra oomph to those big climaxes. Performances in America were often as big or bigger, and even the more sedate tastes of the Germans didn’t rule out performances with 200 or more. In the 20th century, there were murmurs that perhaps the gigantism had got out of hand, but the public didn’t care, partly because the tradition of performances by big regional choral societies such as the famous one at Huddersfield was so well established.
It’s not surprising a reaction to all this set in during the 1920s, when a lean neo-classicism was all the rage. I’ve recently come across some evidence for the new trend in this very newspaper, thanks to eagle-eyed press officers at the Royal Albert Hall. They discovered a Telegraph review of a performance of Messiah which took place in 1923. It was given by the now-defunct Royal Choral Society and was on a huge scale. “The big choir was on great form, knowing every semiquaver of the familiar choruses, singing lustily when not listening or applauding,” says our man, which to me sounds like damning with faint praise. He then complains about the audience applauding in the wrong place, adding, “That this subject should have to be periodically raised is as much a melancholy reflection upon contemporary manners as it is upon musical taste.” Nothing changes, it seems. He then goes on: “It would seem that “Messiah” today is not so much a classical masterpiece illuminating in an eighteenth-century manner certain passages from Holy Writ as a great popular work of which they know all the tunes; atmosphere is neither known nor required; tradition is that of half-a-century in the Albert Hall; and the standard of performance, which demands great resonance as a prime necessity, is commensurate with that taste.”
You can practically smell the condescension. It grieves me to say this about an erstwhile colleague, but he exemplifies the snobbery that still lingers around the topic of “authenticity”. Ignorance of the “real” Handel for this critic goes hand-inhand with the sin of applauding in the wrong place and enjoying the thrill of hundreds of voices. In those days, the sins were excusable – as audiences couldn’t be expected to know any better. Back then, the “period performance” movement had barely begun – it was just a few eccentrics singing madrigals in grand houses and scraping on viols. Now it’s more than half-a-century old. The first wave of scholar-performers such as John Eliot Gardiner and Roger Norrington led the way in the 1970s and ’80s, followed by a second wave of performers like Rinaldo Alessandrini, and we’re now into a third and fourth wave, with young groups like Solomon’s Knot.
So there’s really no excuse for anyone not to know how Handel’s Messiah “ought” to go. And yet the public stubbornly refuses to unlearn its love for performances with big orchestras, complete with inauthentic clarinets and trombones, and even bigger choirs. You only have to peruse the list of performances of Messiah this Christmas to see that. The one coming up at the Albert Hall from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorus next Wednesday is a case in point. It will probably be thrilling – but it won’t be “correct”.
As the great conductor Iván Fischer once said to me, being “correct” can never be a criterion of a good performance; real musicality lies somewhere else. But there’s another reason why anyone tempted to look down on these traditional, big-scale performances really should get off their high horse. The tradition of grand performances is almost continuous with Handel’s own time; we can trace it all the way back. Whereas the “period-performance” movement is essentially fake. Like Scottish tartan and the Changing of the Guard, it’s an invented tradition.
There’s nothing wrong with an invented tradition, especially when it’s backed up with formidable learning and wonderful musicianship – as “authentic” performances of Handel’s Messiah very often are. I would be willing to bet the “period” performance by the Scottish Dunedin Consort on December 18 at the Wigmore Hall will be wonderful. But the real continuous tradition of performing Handel on a large scale should also be given its due, which means listening to the Albert Hall performance with open ears. It may be wrong according to the historians, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have a blazing authenticity of its own.