Handel’s Messiah Performed by the San Francisco Symphony
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At a time of year when nearly every merchant is pushing their wares on the American public in the grand spectacle of Christmas, it's difficult to find an oasis of sanity - a place where the meaning of the holiday hasn't been shoved aside in favor of bell ringing Santas, rehashed Muzak versions of tired carols, and grouchy, harried shoppers all trying to rush through their days.
But such an oasis can be found in the music of the San Francisco Symphony's version of Handel's Messiah, performed this year at the Flint Center on the campus of DeAnza College in Cupertino, California, about an hour south of San Francisco. Once we entered the hall, we felt the world of craziness drift away.
Previous performances of Messiah that I've heard have been high volume events with sopranos in the rafters and choruses blowing out the back doors. I was pleased to see that conductor Christopher Seaman had chosen a more reverent and controlled version of this widely interpreted piece.
Handel wrote Messiah during the years of 1741-45, and performed it first to an indifferent London reception. The piece was revived, however, in 1749, and Handel continued to revise the piece significantly throughout the rest of his life. He lengthened, shortened, and removed many sections, and rewrote portions to match the voices of the local singers. After Handel's death in 1759, many composers have rewritten the score to suit the tastes of the time; some of the most famous revisions are Mozart's (1789) and Ebenezer Proust's (1902).
In the last 35 years, symphonies have been making attempts to return to Handel's spirit for the piece, though not always to the letter - or "note," as it were. Music writer Michael Steinberg says that "Two approaches to performing Messiah are available. You can reconstruct one of the forms in which it was actually given by Handel between 1742 and 1759 (or, for that matter, the 1741 score), or you can treat the score with its variants as a soft of kit from which to build an edition of your own. Like most modern conductors and editors, Mr. Seaman takes the latter, synthetic approach."
Seaman is a magician, able to take 200 voices, several dozen strings, and four powerful soloists and make the setting feel like an intimate private concert, even like chamber music in some movements. By controlling the pace and volume precisely, he leads the listener through every delicate step, never forcing the music on the audience, but rather presenting it as a gift.
Each of the soloists seemed personally moved by the music, no one more so that soprano Danielle De Niese. The Australian-born singer captured the stage visually in a stunning lime green ball gown that set off her green eyes, but what shone most was her deep love of the music. Although the soloists play prominent roles in the performance, no one sings for any length of time or very many movements. By the end Ms. deNiese seemed to be enjoying the music so thoroughly that it seemed that she'd rather sing in the chorus next time around, just to get to participate more.
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Cymber Quinn, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent – Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To book travel visit Jetstreams.com at www.jetstreams.com and for Beach Resorts visit Beach Booker at www.beachbooker.com
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Cymber Quinn, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent. Join the Travel Writers Network in the logo at www.jetsettersmagazine.com Leave Your email next to the logo for FREE e travel newsletter.