The orchestra was done tuning. The soloists had taken their seats at the front of the stage and the conductor had ascended the podium. But there was one more item of business before Tuesday’s performance of Handel’s “Messiah” by the National Chorale at David Geffen Hall could begin. “You know what we need to do,” the conductor Everett McCorvey said, gesturing for audience members to rise from their seats. “We have to warm up.” Then he led the whole auditorium in a sequence of lip trills and scales.
Each December, people flock to churches and concert halls to hear Handel’s scripture-based oratorio, with its glittering succession of choruses, recitatives and arias. But for some, the most cherished “Messiah” is one they get to sing in themselves. Tuesday’s concert was the 57th year that the National Chorale has hosted its “Messiah” sing-in, with the audience as the choir.
The tradition of singalong “Messiahs” featuring thousands of unrehearsed amateur singers goes back to British Handel festivals in the 1820s. “Messiah” is hardly an obvious choice for amateurs, with its blizzards of 16th notes, intricate counterpoint and excursions into the thin-air reaches of the sopranos’ range. Unlike Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio,” which includes simple chorales sung in every Lutheran congregation, Handel’s work was written for a professional setting.
And yet the oratorio came to life in a vibrant performance on Tuesday, carried by the general enthusiasm and aided by a substantial core of what sounded like experienced choristers in the hall. Nearly all had brought their own vocal score. Many could be seen sitting in groups of friends, but in my vicinity I also observed a mother and daughter, leaning in to each other as they tentatively sight-read their way through, and a married couple who trumpeted their different parts — tenor and alto — with piercing confidence.
To honor some of the community groups represented, 17 conductors took turns leading the small but determined band of instrumentalists. Shift changes on the podium were greeted with loud cheers, and every choral selection rewarded with raucous applause. A gladiatorial spirit also seized the quartet of professionals (the soprano Janinah Burnett, the countertenor Benjamin Perry, the tenor Taiwan Norris and the baritone Christopher Burchett) who belted out their solos with warmly received touches of showmanship.
If tempos were sluggish in some of the choral numbers and dynamic shadings fell victim to the collective excitement, I was too busy to pay much attention, caught in the unaccustomed effort of singing myself. A violinist with no vocal training, I had optimistically cast myself as a soprano, counting on that to be the easiest part to pick out amid the sea of voices. But I soon found myself squeaking out in the high notes, after which I selectively dropped out at critical moments, content to steal glances at a young man sitting by himself who sang every note of the bass part with enviable assurance and polish.
Punctuated by laughter and whoops, this “Messiah” unfolded in an atmosphere somewhere between a singing competition and SantaCon. It also drew one of the most diverse crowds I have seen at Geffen Hall and one of the most joyous and colorful, with many participants sporting light-up garlands and 50 shades of red sweaters.
Even the best professional “Messiah” performances are more about community than the notes. That’s what makes Trinity Wall Street’s rendition so consistently moving. I heard a performance last week amid a crush of rain-soaked bodies in Trinity Church. Yes, the choir is wonderful, and the period-instrument orchestra stocked with musicians who play baroque music with native-tongue fluency.
But what’s most memorable is the conversational intimacy that comes from members of the choir stepping out to sing their solos. Among the standouts this year were the lustrous bass Steven Hrycelak and the soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh, whose heartfelt invocation of peace in “Rejoice greatly” had listeners dabbing at tears.
“Messiahs” at Trinity tend to be choreographed with a light hand and a keen instinct for drama. This year, the “heavenly host” Handel conjures in the Nativity scene included the church’s youth chorus which joined in from a balcony above the main entrance, leaving audience members to crane their heads in wonder. The children later returned to their perch to add their bright voices, and a supernatural sparkle, to the resplendent “Hallelujah.”
The English conductor Jane Glover, working from memory, led a supple and breezy performance that stood out for her intelligent phrasing of the choral numbers, during which she patiently allowed textures to build and swell before letting them crest on a carefully chosen word in the text.
I would have liked more big-picture dramaturgy in the New York Philharmonic’s “Messiah,” which I saw at a Friday matinee. Instead, the Dutch early-music specialist Ton Koopman conducted from the harpsichord with unremitting exactness. Here and there, his forensic approach illuminated new details, as in the charmingly naturalistic bleating he brought out in the chorus “Behold the lamb of God.”
But in some of the solo arias his tempos were so slow that both the bass-baritone Klaus Mertens and the tenor Kieran White had to take breaths at inopportune moments inside a phrase. The countertenor Maarten Engeltjes was more persuasive, revealing a buttery tone and flexible articulation. And the soprano Maya Kherani was lithe and radiant in fast coloratura arias like “Rejoice!” and quietly magnetic in affecting numbers like “If God be for us.”
The chorus of Musica Sacra — more than twice the size of the Trinity group, but merely a fraction of the singalong megachoir — was a marvel of lightness and warmth. In its reading, the interlocking runs in “He shall purify” shimmered airy and precise. I’m not sure Handel would have found much purity in the version I participated in, when those runs came out labored and (speaking for myself) short of breath. But I suspect he would have recognized it as a labor of love and a testament to the astonishing communal pull his oratorio still exerts 282 years after its creation.
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