SITE RATING: 6/10
SITE REVIEW:
Having been written during the heyday of behemoth Messiah
forces, I was fully expecting this 1951 tract by Dr. Percy M. Young,
part of a series of small books written about different composers, to
be along those lines; a defense of the full, florid readings which were
evident in Beecham's, Sargent's, and Scherchen's contemporary
recordings. But to my surprise, Dr. Young rails against these
practices, forcefully arguing that Messiah's
"delicacy" is overrun by "its trombones, its organ reeds, and the rest
of the conventional addenda."
In fact, he appears to point directly at Beecham, stating
that no
one would think of rescoring Palestrina or Byrd, but that "Messiah
is made to conform with alien principles. The country road is
obliterated. A trunk road, unlovely and unloved, takes its
place.
Progress loses virtue when arrogant." (pg. 14).
Most of the
book is concerned with how the author believes Messiah
is meant to be performed, and he occasionally gets quite detailed in
his analysis, going line by line through various choruses and arias.
The brevity of the book doesn't allow a full discourse, but
he
manages to get his point across in the pages allotted. He
continues his argument against large forces in the final chapter,
"Orchestration", which argues for a harpsichord accompianment verses an
organ, which had become the norm. In the intervening years
since
this book's appearance, there has been a huge swing is exactly the
direction which Young argues for; some would say the pendulum has swung
too far towards "authenticity" - but it's interesting to read a book
which argues for exactly that point, and from a perspective firmly
entrenched on the "other" side.
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