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SITE RATING:  3/10 SITE REVIEW:  Listening to Beecham's 1947 Messiah is a peek into performance styles of the 1940s, which was heavily sentimental, florid, and, in a way, very attuned to "Hollywood" views of classical music.  The singers have an overblown, presentational style of singing which is completely foreign to modern audiences, but can be easily typed by listening to the expensive Hollywood musicals of the day, which were unsurpassed in opulence and splendor.  The singers here sound as if they could have been carried right off of MGM's studio lot, with Elsie Suddaby, Marjorie Thomas, Heddle Nash, and Trevor Antony sounding, not as if they were "classical" artists, but rather that they were auditioning for various parts in The Wizard of Oz.  Honestly - listen to "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" and see if you don't picture Billie Burke's Glinda The Good Witch singing it, or to "Behold, I Tell You Mystery" and see if it doesn't remind you of Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion.  It's a very odd sensation.  They have a distinctive fluttery tone to their vibratos, and a naturalness to their vocal qualities that reveals their unfamiliarity with electronic recording techniques.  In a way, it makes this a strange, surreal listening experience, humorous in a way, but so out-of-tune with modern training and audience expectations, that I suspect this recording will have only academic interest to Messiah fans; it's fascinating to listen to for all its stylistic and idiosyncratic differences, but not of great merit otherwise.  The Biddulph Recording, which I believe is now out of print, contains three CDs, preserving the original LP release, with the third CD filled out with contemporary recordings by Beecham, while the Classica D'Oro release squeezes the program on to two CDs.

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