Handel - Messiah / Ameling · A. Reynolds · Langridge · Howell · Marriner
Neville Marriner's 1976 account of the Covent Garden version of the score (1743), with the Academy and Chorus of  St. Martin-in-the-Fields and soloists Elly Ameling, Anna Reynolds, Philip Langridge, and Gwynne Howell, is positively plush-sounding but nicely animated. I'd love to have this kind of string tone for, say, the DvorákSerenade, but for Handel it may be just a bit much.--Ted Libbey