Handel - Messiah / Cleobury, Dawson, Summers, Brandenburg Consort
Handel's perennially beloved oratorio is marvelously well served by  everyone involved--musicians and filmmakers alike--in this 1993 production.  ThoughMessiahis still best known as a showcase for enormous forces,  choral and orchestral, many historically informed performances in recent decades  have shown that the piece works splendidly with the less overwhelming but more  precise and transparent smaller groups of period performance ensembles, and this  fleet, stirring account by the Brandenburg Consort is no exception. Under  conductor Stephen Cleobury's sensitive baton, they play with a driving,  quicksilver intensity that belies their small numbers and brings every requisite  dollop of excitement to such numbers as "And He shall purify" or "Why do the  nations," the instrumentalists matched each step of the way by the ringing tones  of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. Handel tinkered with his masterpiece  for a decade after its premiere; Cleobury here presents the 1852 version (with  recitatives and airs for four vocal soloists, SATB) and is blessed with a superb  quartet of vocalists. Tenor John Mark Ainsley is particularly outstanding,  displaying a lovely and noble voice, and tossing off some dazzling ornamentation  in "Every valley." Hillary Summers's ardent rendition of "He was despised" is  another highlight, the consort providing delicately beautiful accompaniment,  while Lynne Dawson and Alastair Miles are fully the equal of their vocal  partners. The passionate intelligence that marks the musical presentation finds  a perfectly sympathetic visualization in Dirk Jan Bijker's tasteful direction,  which captures the proceedings with a clarity and unobtrusive inventiveness  regrettably rare in concert videos. The original broadcast was an early HDTV  presentation, and the images gleam almost as crisply and warmly as the music  itself.--Bruce Reid