The making of a masterpiece.
For more than 200 years Messiah has dominated the musical life of the English-speaking world. Should it be performed with thousands of musicians or with a mere handful as at its first performance? And why has this oratorio survived?
Workshop presents the controversial views of a team of distinguished conductors and scholars who fill in the background to Handel's masterpiece.
Colin Davis, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Watkins Shaw, Leopold Stokowski, John Tobin and Charles Mackerras who conducts the English Chamber Orchestra
Leader, Kenneth Sillito
with Elizabeth Harwood (soprano), Helen Watts (contralto), Paul Esswood (counter-tenor), Robert Tear (tenor), Raimund Herincx (bass), Philip Jones (trumpet), Maurits Sillem (harpsichord)
and extracts from a recording made at Huddersfield Town Hall, first shown on BBC-2 on December 24, 1964 with Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting the Huddersfield Choral Society and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Leader, Peter Mountain