Handel - Messiah / Vyvyan · Sinclair · Vickers · Tozzi · Royal PO · Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham'sMessiahhas become notorious among baroque purists  (like this writer) for embodying the worst excesses of pre-1960 Handel performance: ponderous  tempos, stentorian opera singers, huge lumbering choruses and orchestras, crashing cymbals,  clanging triangles.... Well, we'll need a new straw man: this performance is WONDERFUL. Jon  Vickers and Giorgio Tozzi negotiate Handel's writing surprisingly well; Jennifer Vyvyan takes to it  naturally. The chorus and orchestra (yes, including trombones, tuba, triangle, and cymbals) may  obscure the part-writing, but they fill the music with power, grandeur, and faith. If Mozart could re-orchestrateMessiah, why not Beecham? This may not be Handel'sMessiahas such,  it may even be a period piece itself--but it's magnificent.--Matthew Westphal