A Tuba Players "Messiah"

[Chuck Jackson]

As I prepare for another round of conducting this seasonal favorite, I thought I would share with you a less well-known recording of the Messiah. I am speaking of Thomas Beecham's recording from 1959. With a tuba part. And triangle, cymbals, bells, and the rest of the kitchen sink. The recording is the only one ever done of Eugene Goossens fabulous orchestration of Handels score. It's Handel on steroids. It's preaching with a baseball bat. It is simply magnificent.

Here's the back story as told to me by David Cripps, longtime Principal Horn of the LSO. Beecham was nearing the end of his life and was musing to friends that he missed the mass choral performances that dominated English musical life at the turn of the 20th century. He felt that musicologists had made the English Choral diectors feel quite bad about themselves for having 1000-2000 singers perform what they ostensibly thought should only be done with smaller forces, the Messiah included. Wanting to throw this back in their faces, Beecham encouraged Goossen's to arrange "the bloody thing for everything, including the tuba, so that we may have one last hurrah before leaving". The rest is history.

On the recording is some of the best of the "old guard" British orchestral playing ever put on tape by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. The soloists are Jennifer Vyvyan, Monica Sinclair, Jon Vickers (one of the best tenors of our times) and the amazing bass Giorgio Tozzi. The orchestral playing is stupendous, the choruses a little slower than we may be used to, and the arias decidedly operatic. And it sounds wonderful. No stuffy dissertations about ornaments or dotted note interpretation. No simpering strings playing with a pear shape sound trying to imitate what it MIGHT have sounded like (Period performance is a PIPE_DREAM, c'mon, no one alive was there), just a lusty full-blooded paen to Jesus and Christianity as Goossens imagined it to be. I have to believe Handel loved it!!!!

The tuba is used quite frequently, more than just a supporting role. I have to believe that the bass trombone player is using a G Bass as it is the most unique trombone sound I have ever heard, and if I am correct, Dennis Brain was playing Principal Horn. The sound of the orchestra is huge, absolutely NOBODY holds back, and this recording contains the most over-the-top rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus one will probably ever hear in our life time.

This recording should be in ever tuba players library, if for nothing else than to know for one shining moment we got even.

Messiah/Beecham/RPO RCA Victor 09026-61266-2 I found it at Amazon new for $9.

Cheers, happy listening, and happy holidays.

Chuck

[SplatterTone]

Not to take away from this recommendation, but another to add to your consideration of performances where one goal was to make it big is the one done by Antal Dorati in 1984 with approx. 100 piece orchestra and 325 voice choir in the Washington Cathedral. When it came out, most critics gave it reserved approval recognizing the challenges in keeping that many voices and instruments together as well as keeping it from lumbering. At the time, I believe most critics put this high on their list of "monster" performances ... IF one was absolutely determined to own a monster performance.

I enjoy the huge sound. The soloists are not my favorite, but "competent."
A highlight.
http://t-recs.net/mpegs/tubenet/Hallelujah.mp3