You have to wonder what was behind the decision by the Oregon Bach Festival and Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart to commission Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström to compose a new musical setting of Charles Jennens’ libretto for Handel’s Messiah. The rationale is never explained in the notes to this expertly engineered recording, made at a concert performance in Stuttgart in September, 2009. You would think that this information would be important because unlike a new setting of a Mass or Psalm or other common, formalized text, Jennens’ carefully selected and ordered Messiah was created specifically for and is inextricably tied to Handel’s work, and to create a new version is to presume that one might have something new to say with these particular words and in this particular organizational structure, as opposed to simply compiling your own, unique “Messiah”. So the question remains: why this particular text? The question takes on even more significance when you hear the music.
After my fourth run through this 80-minute work, the word “coherent” refuses to attach itself as a musical description of the sequence of arias and choruses that, while faithfully strung according to Handelian tradition, are naturally subjected to Sandström’s vision, which often means re-setting Handel’s aria or recit into a chorus (Comfort ye), or vice-versa (O thou that tellest good tidings to Sion). Fine. But the idea of casting “Ev’ry valley shall be exalted” as a duet for tenor and baritone is interesting only if we understand what motivated it; we are after all inevitably comparing this new setting to Handel’s, so is the choice of two voices meaningful or is it done just to be different?
The musical style also is a bit bewildering, for there is not one but many, incongruously joined from one number to the next, all (thankfully) tonal and easily listenable–but conveying an air of hodge-podge rather than an organically grown, conceptually cohesive structure.
But there are many signs of great potential: His yoke is easy and Why do the nations, both sporting exciting rhythms with percussion, show the promise that is only occasionally tapped; there are vocal solos–you can’t really call them arias–that suggest an operatic context (Rejoice greatly; Thou shalt break them) that could have been more effectively developed. Part 3 contains some of the work’s most “beautiful” music, in the traditional sense, including the chorus Since by man came death, followed by a more conventional and equally affecting “aria”, Behold, I tell you a mystery, for alto solo. But thanks be to God employs one of Sandström’s favorite techniques, where parts continually overlap one another, which he uses freely throughout the work, a work that ends with an Arvo Pärt-like Amen, with its repeated (and again) overlapping melodic fragments.
Yes, the choral singing is very fine and the same is true for the contributions from the four soloists; the orchestra is first-rate, and of course Helmut Rilling is among the world’s most capable and respected conductors. However, I can’t join in the acclaim heaped on this work by many European critics, some of whom believe this Messiah to be not only worthy of the original but of a secure place in the repertoire. Rather I approach Sandström’s Messiah with the same question I ask with any new release of Handel’s original masterpiece: Does the world really need another Messiah? In this case, I’d say the answer is “no”. If you’re going to give me a brand new Messiah, at least give me something to sing about.
