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BOOKS |
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| TITLE: |
A
TEXTUAL COMPANION TO HANDEL'S MESSIAH |
| AUTHOR: |
WATKINS SHAW |
| PUBLISHER: |
NOVELLO PUBLISHING LTD |
| ISBN (HARDCOVER): |
N/A |
| ISBN (PAPERBACK): |
0853600333 |
| UPC/EAN: |
9780853600336 |
| LCCN: |
N/A |
| YEAR: |
1965 (REVISED 1982) |
| SERIES: |
N/A |
| PAGES: |
233 P. |
| PUB. LOCATION: |
LONDON, ENGLAND |
| DDC: |
N/A |
| EXCERPT: |
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PAGE (.PDF) |
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| DESCRIPTION: This book
provides an ample background of textual and historical information to
Handel's Messiah. Though it arises from the author's work
involved in his own edition in vocal and full score (Novello), its
relevance is by no means confined to that edition. A survey
of Handel's singers and of manuscript sources of the work provides the
basis for an investigation into the alterations and development to
which the work was subject after its original conception. The
alternative versions of numerous movements are also reviewed and thus a
certain amount of light is shed on the form assumed by the earliest
printed copies. After an important discussion of textual
authority and a commentary on the readings of individual movements, the
author concludes with a statement of editorial aims and practices.
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SITE RATING: 10/10
SITE REVIEW:
Shaw
compiled the data for this book when compiling his own Novello edition
of the Messiah score, which is still in use today. NOT for casual or light reading,
Watkins Shaw's intensive A
Textual Companion to Handel's
Messiah is a dense, super-fine analysis examining the
authoritative manuscript sources for Messiah,
and the
differences between these sources, (analyzed in excruciatingly minute
detail). Also, the singers involved in each production and
their various abilities (where known) are examined for their impact on
the various changes, secondary sources are also attended to, early
printed copies, the Foundling Hospital version is examined, as well as
textual authorities for each of the sources. It's safe to say
that Watkins Shaw is the father of the modern practice of recording a
specific edition of Messiah, with numerous editions of the "Dublin" Messiah versus the
"Foundling Hospital" version rattling consumer's brains. All
of these variants can be wholly or in part attributed to Shaw's
meticulous work, with his notating of
each change and variant, and while painstaking and exacting in its
attention to
detail, this book can hardly be recommended to anyone except
serious musicologists, and conductors who wish to perform an historical
recreation of a certain year's Messiah.
Numerous example and fold-out-charts are included, but the reader is
handicapped by not having the same sources at their fingertips as Shaw
had. This book should also be of great help to those who love
to
pick apart the various editions of Messiah and revel
in minutia.
Currently out-of-print, but can be found at most University
libraries, or purchased relatively inexpensively through Amazon UK:
Textual
and Historical Companion to Handel's Messiah
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