Today I finished my second piece of music written especially for the "The Lakside" Chicago USA reed organ. I do not have an electronic version yet, as it is a demanding job to type the music into the sheet music software. An alternative is to scan the papers, but my music hand writing is not so easy to read, so I doubt anybody will find it any useful. Some day...
Naxos 8.570131-32 gives you the 1751 version - no female voices, baroque ensamble and all the good music! The countertenor solo is just out of this world!!! My ears are certainly not worthy to receive those devine sound waves emitting from Iestyn Davies' mouth, but I let them anyway, because it gives me such pleasure. Much better than sex, sorry, six pints of English bitter ale! This is THE recording of Messiah you'd want if you want only one recording. It is "just" out, recorded in January 2006.
13 months have gone by since I first started practicing Messiah, and just over 10 months since the performance. Last Wednesday I bought it on CD with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields live from Dublin (Philips 470 044-2, reissue of 470 045-2). It has received fairly good critics, so I was very disappointed when I discovered that the tenor soloist didn't manage to sing "Comfort Ye" with any expression or intensity that I hoped for. He even missed on the pitch a couple of places. "Ev'ry Valley" was somewhat better, but still a boring performance. He has a good tone in his voice, but it lacks expression (or so I think, anyway). On the bright side the soprano part of the chorus was much more convincing that of the odd amateur choir, but I would not expect any less. My favourite track on this CD must be "And He Shall Purify", which is very easy and on time, and with plenty of dynamics. I agree that this is a recording that is easy to like, because there are no obvious faults or bad sound, but neither is there anything out of the ordinary. The price was nice, though, a double CD for the price of a single. If you have not bought a recording of Messiah for yourself yet, I would not recommend this recording. There just has to be a better one out there. But if you want several different recordings in your collection, this would probably be one of those that you'd want.
Please write a comment if you have more facts!
I had a friend coming over with some recording equipment and recorded the sound from my beloved reed organ. We had to do some fiddling about before we got a recording that wasn't too embarrassing to put on the web, but still it could have been a lot better. Anyway, the point isn't to show off, but to get an idea of how the organ sounds like. Below you can hear Andante in G by Charles Macpherson which I adapted for my one manual reed organ: You can hear me taking the 16' out and in a couple of times; The Vox Humana is very hard to hear, but it is used in a two bar passage; Right after the Vox Humana I pull out the Celeste in a similar reponsorial passage before returning to the opening theme; Then I use the crescendo knee "pedal" or "wing" (left hand side) followed by the swell pedal (right) at the beginning of the loudest passage.
Download the mp3 file at The Organ Amateur Page
