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Scene from: Handel’s Messiah

Composer: George Frideric Handel
Conductor: Christopher Hogwood

Handel's Messiah is the most famous choral work ever written. Performed and filmed in the unsurpassed splendour of Westminster Abbey, where Handel is buried, this DVD takes full advantage not only of the Abbey's fine acoustic quality, but also of the incomparable architectural splendour of the surroundings.
For more than a century performances of Handel's Messiah have accustomed us to the sight and sound of massed choirs, often comprising hundreds of voices, balanced by an orchestra of appropriate size. In Handel's day, this best-loved of all oratorios was performed by fewer than forty instrumentalists and a chorus, less than thirty strong, of boy trebles and men. That is the tradition to which Christopher Hogwood has returned in his performances with the Academy of Ancient Music.
Members of the Academy all play instruments of the period or accurate modern copies. The choruses are sung in this recording by members of the choir of Westminster Abbey, including Judith Nelson, Emma Kirkby, Carolyn Watkinson, Paul Elliot and David Thomas. The soloists improvise embellishments in the arias and, in certain cases, join in the singing of the choruses, just as they would have been expected to do over 200 years ago.
This Foundling Hospital version is the performance as laid down by Handel in the set of parts he donated to this charity, based at Bloomsbury, London, after many such performances he gave for fund raising.

Choir: Soprano 1 - Judith Nelson, Soprano 2 - Emma Kirkby, Contralto - Carolyn Watkinson, Tenor - Paul Elliott, Bass - David Thomas, Organist and Master of the Choristers - Simon Preston.

Catalogue: 0630178342

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