Louise T. Guinther

While the department stores rush headlong into the Top 40 Christmas songs as soon as the turkey is packed away (or even sooner), I like to savor Advent, at least for the first few weeks, before plunging full-time into “Santa Baby” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” 

My first musical impulse for the season is, I’m sure, a pretty common one, at least among classical-music lovers like me. Listening to the Old Testament reading on the second Sunday in Advent—“Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,’ saith your God”—always sends me rushing straight to the CD shelves (yes, I still listen to music the old-fashioned way) to put on Part I of Handel’s Messiah. By the time the twelve days of Christmas are over, my family will have listened to all the versions in our collection at least once—but only Part I! We save the rest for Easter. 

All the recordings we own are wonderful, and the broad range of eras and styles makes the experience all the richer, but I’m particularly partial to a 1972 rendition featuring the London Philharmonic and the John Alldis Choir under Karl Richter’s baton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3QHmaL4bWA&list=PLyrS5_ErY3KRgDhBWsaBz22dGgSjoH6cK

There is a cleanness, an un-fussiness about it that seems to me particularly well suited to a season in which we are all meant to purify our hearts to make room for God. Stuart Burrows sings “Comfort ye” with beautifully Baroque elegance and refinement, but he also brings to this challenging piece an utterly natural quality and a sense of joy in the act of singing that only a Welshman could muster. His roulades in “Every valley” carry the listener on a delightfully giddy journey through those exalted valleys and depressed hills. 

Anna Reynolds sounds exactly the way a Handelian alto should sound—rich and creamy, but not hooty—and she handles runs in “Oh Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion” as if to the manor born. Helen Donath, a native of Corpus Christi, Texas, brings all-American freshness and exuberance to “Rejoice Greatly,” along with gloriously crystalline sound, impeccable coloratura and the impression that she could sing this music in her sleep if it weren’t so much more fun to do it while she’s awake. Then there’s Sir Donald McIntyre, the great Wagnerian bass from New Zealand, who once told me Handel was his favorite composer to listen to. McIntyre’s big, powerful edgy voice seems a better fit for Valhalla than for the light, buoyant writing of Handel, but he navigates the coloratura with surprising ease, and his brilliantly precise diction does full justice to the immortal words of Charles Jennens (and the King James Bible). More to the point, as is his wont, McIntyre makes every word he sings sound like a pronouncement of the utmost importance.

The commercial side of Christmas has its points; money makes the world go ’round, as we all know. But music (especially Handel’s) makes the spirit soar.