What’s your favorite Massiah?

[+ g56whiz]

As an amateur choralist fall often meant prepping for yet another Messiah. Most were large scale Sir Thomas Beecham type performances devoid of attention to 18th century performance practices. Eventually I gave up and “just said no”. Bach’s Weihnachts Oratorium is a wonderful work.

 

Recently I’ve been surprised by two Messiahs I’ve discovered. The first is Les Arts Florrisant’s 1994 recording under William Christe. This group is justifyingly famous for its performances and recording of Baroque opera. Except for a very rare diction lapse common to the French trying to speak English the choral work is amazingly precise and good. But the soloist steal the show. The ornamentation of da capo repeats is epic: bordering on too much. I loved it.

 

The second is a more recent YouTube video by Voces8. Voces8 is an a cappella group of 8 (of course) that focuses on blend. They derive out of the OxBridge choral tradition except they use women sopranos sans vibrato. Their video of Holst’s Lux Aeterna is breathtakingly beautiful. For Messiah they expanded to maybe 20 but without loss of blend. The orchestra is also pared down. I don’t know the young conductor but I want to. His tempi are swift without being rushed and the movement between pieces natural rather rushed or taking forever. My only (very minor) reservation is the soloists. They all come from within the chor and are stylistically fine with thoughtful ornamentation but they are young. Some just don’t have the vocal heft to match the lyrics. The mountains just didn’t quake enough for me.

 

What’s your favorite Messiah and why?

 

ADDENDUM

 

Voces8’s Messiah is accompanied by the Academy of Ancient Music all under the direction of Barbaby Smith.

Edited December 10, 2020 by g56whiz

[jeezifonly]

I love the Christie - agree about some overworked ornaments but the overall feeling is perfect. I’m a big fan of Voces8 - will have to check theirs out. (OMG The Biebl Ave Maria!!)

 

Here’s a Messiah that is musically accurate, with a modern allegorical full-on opera staging. It’s pretty great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LsZpitl-cI

 

For the Beecham to make sense for me, it has to be in a random order playlist with any Boston Pops Holiday album, the Living Strings Spirit of Christmas, and my fave OTT extravaganza, Robert Shaw’s Many Moods of Christmas. You won’t have to adjust volume between tracks -

The Beecham Messiah will come off as delicate. LOL

[RuffLeatherPig]

None of em...boooring. Give me Verdi, Bizet any day!

[+ g56whiz]

None of em...boooring. Give me Verdi, Bizet any day!

What? No Wagner?

[jeezifonly]

None of em...boooring. Give me Verdi, Bizet any day!

Baroque not my favorite genre (Strauss Mozart Puccini) but I like everything but the most recent New music (there are exceptions)

I’ve witnessed some brilliant theatre with early music. In concert or audio recordings, baroque can lose me. When well-staged it can be glorious.

But some bold dramatic risks succeed at the sacrifice of the music: (nudity alert must open in app!)

 

[samhexum]

What’s your favorite Messiah and why?

 

Winston, because he made the justice system more fair:

 

 

Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from eliciting statements from the defendant about themselves after the point that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches.

 

In Massiah, the defendant had been indicted on a federal narcotics charge. He retained a lawyer, pleaded not guilty, and was released on bail. A co-defendant, after deciding to cooperate with the government, invited Massiah to sit in his car and discuss the crime he was indicted on, during which the government listened in via a radio transmitter. During the conversation, Massiah made several incriminating statements, and those statements were introduced at trial to be used against him.

 

Massiah appealed his conviction, which was affirmed in part by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed, holding that the statements made by the defendant outside the presence of his attorney must be suppressed.

 

The Massiah rule applies to the use of testimonial evidence in criminal proceedings deliberately elicited by the police from a defendant after formal charges have been filed. The events that trigger the Sixth Amendment safeguards under Massiah are (1) the commencement of adversarial criminal proceedings and (2) deliberate elicitation of information from the defendant by governmental agents.

 

The Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant a right to counsel in all criminal prosecutions. The purposes of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel are to protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial and to assure that our adversarial system of justice functions properly by providing competent counsel as an advocate for the defendant in his contest against the “prosecutorial forces” of the state.

 

The Sixth Amendment right “attaches” once the government has committed itself to the prosecution of the case by the initiation of adversarial judicial proceedings "by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information or arraignment,". Determining whether a particular event or proceeding constitutes the commencement of adversarial criminal proceedings requires both an examination of the rules of criminal procedure for the jurisdiction in which the crime is charged and the Supreme Courts cases dealing with the issue of when formal prosecution begins. Once adversarial criminal proceedings commence the right to counsel applies to all critical stages of the prosecution and investigation. A critical stage is "any stage of the prosecution, formal or informal, in court or out, where counsel's absence might derogate from the accused's right to a fair trial."

 

Massiah vs. Miranda

1. Constitutional Basis-
   Miranda is based on the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
   Massiah is based on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
   
2. Attachment - Miranda: Custody + Interrogation. (Charging status irrelevant) Massiah: Formally Charged + Deliberate Elicitation. (Custodial status irrelevant)
   
3. Scope
   
   1. 
      
   2. Miranda applies to custodial interrogation by known governmental agents. Surreptitious acquisition of incriminating information allowed. Massiah applies to overt and surreptitious interrogation.
      
   3. Miranda is not offense specific. Massiah is offense specific.
      
   4. Miranda: interrogation + "functional equivalent." Massiah: interrogation + "deliberate elicitation."
      

[*]Waiver: Both Miranda and Massiah rights may be waived.

[*]Assertion: In each case, the assertion must be clear and unequivocal. The effects of assertion are not identical. For purposes of Miranda, the police must immediately cease the interrogation and cannot resume interrogating the defendant about any offense charged or uncharged unless counsel is present or defendant initiates contact for purposes of resuming interrogation and valid waiver obtained. Because Massiah is offense-specific, an assertion of the sixth amendment right to counsel requires the police to cease interrogating the defendant about any charged offense. Apparently the police could continue questioning the defendant about uncharged crimes assuming that the defendant was not in custody. The defendant's remedy would be to leave or to refuse to answer questions.

[*]Remedy for violation: The statements and testimonial information are subject to suppression. Derivative evidence is usually not subject to suppression under Miranda pursuant to the "fruit of poisonous tree" doctrine, although it might be suppressed for a Massiah violation. Both Miranda and Massiah defective statements can be used for impeachment purposes.

[RuffLeatherPig]

What? No Wagner?

Wagner...so heavy! Who has 3 days fir the ring lol! I like my operas short and sweet 4 hours or less lol

[cany10011]

The NYT posted a link to tonight’s show (streaming from the 2019 concert) at Trinity Church Wallstreet: https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/music-arts/2019-2020/messiah

 

According to Trinity’s website: Trinity presented one of the first performances in North America in 1770, and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra are still widely regarded as some of the greatest interpreters of the work. In 2018, The New York Times described Trinity’s presentation as “perhaps the essential New York ‘Messiah.’ With the church’s choir and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Mr. Wachner provides gritty, gutsy, edge-of-the-seat performances.”

[KrisParr]

As an amateur choralist fall often meant prepping for yet another Messiah. Most were large scale Sir Thomas Beecham type performances devoid of attention to 18th century performance practices. Eventually I gave up and “just said no”. Bach’s Weihnachts Oratorium is a wonderful work.

 

Recently I’ve been surprised by two Messiahs I’ve discovered. The first is Les Arts Florrisant’s 1994 recording under William Christe. This group is justifyingly famous for its performances and recording of Baroque opera. Except for a very rare diction lapse common to the French trying to speak English the choral work is amazingly precise and good. But the soloist steal the show. The ornamentation of da capo repeats is epic: bordering on too much. I loved it.

 

The second is a more recent YouTube video by Voces8. Voces8 is an a cappella group of 8 (of course) that focuses on blend. They derive out of the OxBridge choral tradition except they use women sopranos sans vibrato. Their video of Holst’s Lux Aeterna is breathtakingly beautiful. For Messiah they expanded to maybe 20 but without loss of blend. The orchestra is also pared down. I don’t know the young conductor but I want to. His tempi are swift without being rushed and the movement between pieces natural rather rushed or taking forever. My only (very minor) reservation is the soloists. They all come from within the chor and are stylistically fine with thoughtful ornamentation but they are young. Some just don’t have the vocal heft to match the lyrics. The mountains just didn’t quake enough for me.

 

What’s your favorite Messiah and why?

 

ADDENDUM

 

Voces8’s Messiah is accompanied by the Academy of Ancient Music all under the direction of Barbaby Smith.

 

Thank you so much for the post. I’ve been attending either a sing-along of Messiah for decades or at least a concert and this year, damnit, there’s of course no sing-alongs and no in-person performances. The link is to Voices8, which is amazing. Only one small thing, the “Comfort ye” was as slow as I’ve ever heard. Even boosting the speed to 1.25 was draggy. However, the “Why do the nations” was perfect tempo, if not a hair too fast. Anyhow, very enjoyable.

 

[+ Charlie]

The ones my mother used to sing in when I was a child (she was an alto soloist).

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

I was always partial to a little Messiah Carey

[+ honcho]

To go rather off-topic, I've been truly impressed with the artistry, and amazingly wide range that Voces8 performs.

 

A quick search of you-tube pulled up a number of things worth listening to.

 

As an oboe-player myself I had to start with this one (a bach chorale more commonly known as "Jesu, joy of man's desiring")

 

But also a piece by a contemporary american choral composer Eric Whitacre, "sleep".

 

(I've performed this one twice as an arragement for concert band - two points of interest: first, it was intended to be a setting of a Robert Frost poem, but Frost's estate wouldn't give permission. So Whitacre persuaded a poet friend of his to write a new poem with the same meter and stresses, so that it would fit his music. The other thing that might make one smile is that Whitacre's first large scale work was a degree project at UNLV for concert band called "Godzilla eats Las Vegas". The music here though is utterly different.)

 

Going in the other direction, they have a transcription of an orchestra work, Nimrod for Elgar's "Enigma Variations":

 

and some movie music (from the Lord of the Rings):

[Bargara Leatherboy]

The Brahms requiem or the Britten , hard to split. I do love the St Matthew Passion and the Messiah