[12/24/2010] Christmas Eve edition: "Comfort ye" (continued)

Our not-such-a-mystery tenor (a bit older here!)

Here's what we're going to do. We have here first the recording we just heard on the other side of the click-through, labeled (1), along with another recording, the one labeled (2), which in fact we've also already heard, in last year's Messiah post -- at least the "Comfort ye" recitative; this year we hear the aria as well.

HANDEL: Messiah: Part I, Recitative and aria (tenor), "Comfort ye, my people" . . . "Every valley shall be exalted" [Nos. 1-2]
(1)

(2)

(1) Jon Vickers, tenor; Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Sir Ernest MacMillan, cond. RCA/EMI, recorded c1952
(2) Jon Vickers, tenor; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham, cond. (orch. Goossens). RCA/BMG, recorded 1959


MESSIAH THROUGH THE BASS'S EYES

The American bass-baritone Donald Gramm made so few recordings that I rather cherish this Messiah recorded for Book of the Month Club's Classics Record Library. (Yes, BOMC did stuff like this back then.) While much of this music could legitimately be treeated in more dynamic, proclamatory fashion than either Gramm or the lovely bass Franz Crass (in Karl Richter's German-language Messiah) does, I find the recitative "For behold, darkness shall cover the earth" and aria "The people who walk in darkness" spellbinding.

Part I, Recitative and aria (bass or alto), "Thus saith the Lord" . . . "But who may abide the day of His coming" [Nos. 4-5]

Recitative
Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts: Yet once a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come.

[Haggai 2:6-7]

The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in, behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts.

[Malachi 3:1]

Aria
But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth?
For He is like a refiner's fire.
But who may abide &c.

[Malachi 3:2]

Donald Gramm, bass-baritone; Zimbler Sinfonietta, Thompson Stone, cond. (Boston Handel and Haydn Society). BOMC Classics Record Library, recorded c1957
[in German] Franz Crass, bass (in the recitative); Marga Höffgen, contralto (in the aria); Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, cond. DG, recorded June 1964

Part I, Recitative and aria (bass), "For behold, darkness shall cover the earth" . . . "The people that walked in darkness" [Nos. 10-11]

Recitative
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people. But the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to Thy light and kings to the brightness of Thy rising.

[Isaiah 60:2-3]

Aria
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. And they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

[Isaiah 9:2]

Donald Gramm, bass-baritone; Zimbler Sinfonietta, Thompson Stone, cond. (Boston Handel and Haydn Society). BOMC Classics Record Library, recorded c1957
[in German] Franz Crass, bass; Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, cond. DG, recorded June 1964

Part II, Aria (bass), "Why do the nations so furiously rage together?" [No. 38]

Aria
Why do the nations so furiously rage together, and why do the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed.

[Psalm 2:1-2]

Donald Gramm, bass-baritone; Zimbler Sinfonietta, Thompson Stone, cond. (Boston Handel and Haydn Society). BOMC Classics Record Library, recorded c1957
[in German] Franz Crass, bass; Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, cond. DG, recorded June 1964

Part III, Aria and recitative (bass), "Behold, I tell you a mystery" . . . "The trumpet shall sound" [Nos. 45-46]

Recitative
Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

[I Corinthians 15:51-52]

Aria
The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changèd.

[I Corinthians 15:53]

Donald Gramm, bass-baritone; Roger Voisin, trumpet; Zimbler Sinfonietta, Thompson Stone, cond. (Boston Handel and Haydn Society). BOMC Classics Record Library, recorded c1957
[in German] Franz Crass, bass; Maurice André, trumpet; Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, cond. DG, recorded June 1964


FOR ME MESSIAH ISN'T A RELIGIOUS WORK BUT IS "CHRISTIAN"
IN ITS DEEP HUMANITY -- UNLIKE MODERN CRAP CHRISTIANITY

It's always pointed out how utterly atypical of Handel's huge output of oratorios Messiah. All the others are versions of stories of one sort or another drawn from the Old Testament, works that would probably have been staged in Handel's time if stage representation of biblical subjects had been allowed in England. Messiah has no plot, and draws on both the New and the Old Testament.

As I've already said, for me there's nothing notably religious about Messiah. It treats the deeply human values of Jesus in humanistic terms. Near the start of Part II we hear the longest and greatest musical number in Messiah, the alto aria "He was despisèd," and it's hard not to think that Jesus today would be the same reviled outsider today that the alto recalls.

Last year we heard a lovely performance by the Czech mezzo Marjana Lipovšek. Now we hear first the higher, lighter mezzo of the Australian Yvonne Minton, and then, in an appropriately more drawn-out performance, the deeper, more contralto-ish mezzo of the American Florence Quivar.

Part II, Aria (alto), "He was despisèd" [No. 21]

He was despisèd and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acqainted with grief.

[Isaiah 53:3]

He gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; He hid not His face from shame and spitting.

[Isaiah 50:6]

Yvonne Minton, mezzo-soprano; English Chamber Orchestra, Johannes Somary, cond. Vanguard, recorded July 1970Florence Quivar, mezzo-soprano; Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis, cond. EMI, recorded c1986

AND HOW ELSE COULD WE CONCLUDE . . .

. . . but by going back to the climax of Part II for the ever-familiar and ever-rousing "Hallelujah Chorus" [No. 42]?

Hallelujah: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Hallelujah! The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever, Hallelujah! King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and He shall reign for ever and ever, Hallelujah!

[Revelations 19:6; 11:15; 19:16]

Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded 1958-59


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