Master Chorale Shines in Mozart’s Arrangement of ‘Messiah'
/By Truman C. Wang
12/19/2024
Photo credit: Jamie Pham/LA Master Chorale
On Sunday, December 15, I attended the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s Messiah, in the arrangement by Mozart. Grant Gershon conducted a beautifully shaped and proportioned account of the work. Charles Jennens, who compiled the Bible text for Handel, called Messiah a “fine Entertainment,” and its early London performances were given, scandalously, in the theatres. There are episodes of mystery, awe, pain, tenderness, splendor, but essentially Messiah is a joyful piece. The best performances should be entertaining and, in the Part II Passion play sequence, intensely dramatic.
The Mozart arrangement, as performed by the Master Chorale, had a medium-size chorus of 44 and an orchestral balance that’s reedier and brassier than a typical Handelian band. Existing winds and brass were expanded (more oboes, bassoons, trumpets), and new instruments added (flutes, trombones and horns). Following the London Foundling Hospital Messiah in 1758, Mozart in 1789 used the same pair of horns doubling the trumpets in “The trumpet shall sound”. It wasn’t the first time Mozart modified an old score to suit the taste of his Viennese audience. To the K.365 piano concerto originally written in Salzburg, he added a clarinet, a trumpet and drum for Vienna. But Disney Hall is probably ten times the size of the Foundling Hospital or the hall in Count Esterházy’s palace (where the Mozart Messiah was first performed), and the Master Chorale Orchestra’s instruments are modern; they filled the hall with stirring, powerful sounds in the choral numbers and lent a rustic charm to the pifa pastorale before “There were shepherds”. In the solo numbers, however, they made no attempt to lighten or reduce vibrato, either to emulate authentic baroque practice, or to allow the voices to be heard. (“O thou that tellest good Tidings to Zion” was barely audible.)
When he performed Messiah, Handel always divided the solo numbers among five or more singers. Today, we get only four. In this concert they were four light voices that would have sounded more vivid in a smaller hall. Graycen Gardner, the soprano, sang “He shall feed his flock” attractively, with tone that glowed the brighter as it rose. To the alto part Hannah Little brought a sincere, if a bit reticent, tone to “He was despised” and decorated the da capo movingly. Edmond Rodriguez, the tenor, was convincingly poignant in “Thy rebuke hath broken his heart”, but unconvincing in the runs and coloratura of “Rejoice greatly” (an air better suited for a soprano in Handel’s original.) Steve Pence was a strong, agile bass but no match for the onslaught of two horns and two trumpets in “The trumpet shall sound”.
The choral singing was quite exceptional – admirable clarity, flexibility and crisp diction in the thorniest fugues (“He trusted in God.”) The lighter choruses (“All we like sheep”) were fleet and entertaining without sounding giddy or frivolous. Outside of its own concerts, the Master Chorale also performs with the L.A. Philharmonic, probably better than most symphony choruses I have heard. This Messiah was indeed a fine entertainment, most of all for its superb choral singing.
Truman C. Wang is Editor-in-Chief of Classical Voice, whose articles have appeared in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, other Southern California publications, as well as the Hawaiian Chinese Daily. He studied Integrative Biology and Music at U.C. Berkeley.