Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus brought tears to my eyes this morning while I drove to work. It’s a wonderful beyond words. A bit of music trivia for you folks: Handel’s Messiah is one of those works that ends up in the snobby musician spotlight because it’s old enough that educated folks want to hear it without the 19th-century bombasticism [alert: I just made up a great word! sounds like monasticism and is almost an antonym.]
Most British conductors will strive for a performance that sounds like the original. Most Italian conductors will go nuts, reorchestrate it to include things like tubas or a gong (that didn’t even exist in Western music at the time,) and super-loudness and tempo changes that make Danny Elfman scores sound like C.P.E. Bach. My feeling is the music doesn’t need 19th-century non-sensibilities in order to be effective. It’s a true masterpiece and therefore the performance style doesn’t need to change to please an ear with different taste.
So I’m circling back to my previous thought: Where are the Sacred Masterpieces of the 20th Century? I can name a few and the composers don’t have S.J. after their name.