Dallas Bach Society To Release Premiere Recording Of Handel's Original Messiah In November
This release is a new edition created by noted musicologist Malcolm Bruno, based on the original 1741 score.
Onyx Classics has announced the release on November 22, 2024, of a premiere recording of George Frideric Handel's 1741 original version of Messiah, HWV 56 by the Dallas Bach Society under the baton of Artistic Director James Richman. In this album, (reference ONYX4255) the Dallas Bach Society Chorus and Orchestra are joined by exceptional soloists, Kara McBain, soprano, Dianna Grabowski, alto, Dann Coakwell tenor, David Grogan, bass, as well as boy soprano Hayden Smith. This release is a new edition created by noted musicologist Malcolm Bruno, based on the original 1741 score.
"Messiah is unique in the canon of Western music," writes Maestro Richman. "Performed every year since its premiere in 1742 to ever-growing audiences, its appeal knows no boundaries." The first Messiah was given in the city of Dublin on April 13, 1742, although the work was written in London between August to September in 1741. Messiah met with instant critical acclaim and was soon being performed annually to benefit Handel's favorite charity, London's Foundling Hospital. In Mr. Bruno's words "Handel left no final score, no final instructions, no permanent record except for the desire for Messiah to benefit London's most vulnerable, but the power and authority of Handel's Messiah lies ever in the chemistry of the music and the words united,"
According to Maestro Richman, "On the 25th anniversary of Handel's death and (what was erroneously believed to be) the 100th anniversary of his birth, a grand Handel festival was organized in 1784 in Westminster Abbey, which featured a total of 275 choristers and an orchestra of 250 players. The numerical notion of greatness only gathered momentum during the 19th century, leading up to an 1859 performance at London's Crystal Palace under the baton of Sir Michael Costa, which featured a total of some 3,225 musicians. At this point a music critic by the name of George Bernard Shaw (writing under the pen name Corno di Bassetto) raised the salient point in response to the ever more gargantuan presentations of the work. 'Why doesn't somebody set up a thoroughly rehearsed and exhaustively studied performance of Messiah in St James's Hall with a chorus of 20 capable artists? Most of us would be glad to hear the work seriously performed once before we die.' As historically informed performance practice has developed, this goal is now a reality, which is as it should be, for this was the greatest of men and of composers, whose facility and genius have rarely if ever been equaled. The full extent of his work, largely in the shadows until the latter 20th century, has now begun to be enjoyed in opera houses across the world. Known now for more than Messiah and a few other oratorios and instrumental pieces, the true extent of Handel's universality is increasingly better felt in our time."
The recording will be available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. In order to purchase a recording, please visit Onyx Classics' website. For more information, please visit the Dallas Bach Society's website.
For more than four decades, the Dallas Bach Society has delighted audiences with its distinguished concerts of Baroque and Classical Music dedicated to historical authenticity. In conjunction with the world premiere recording of Handel's original Messiah (1741 Version) the Dallas Bach Choir and Orchestra, along with the four exceptional soloists featured in the recording, will perform the 1741 edition of this masterpiece at the acoustically exceptional Meyerson Symphony Center.
Since its founding in 1982 by beloved organist Paul Riedo, the Dallas Bach Society has increasingly been recognized as one of the country's premier ensembles performing on original instruments. Under the direction of Artistic Director James Richman since 1995, the Society unites the finest singers and instrumentalists from the Dallas - Fort Worth Metroplex, from further afield in the United States and from abroad, in lively and historically informed performances of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Purcell, Monteverdi, Couperin, and Schütz, as well as Mozart, Haydn, and early Beethoven. Every season the Dallas Bach Society presents a full program of Baroque and Classic music, showcasing little-known repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries along with audience favorites including Handel's Messiah (in both the early and Mozart versions), Bach's Passions, cantatas, and Brandenburg Concerti, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, as well as Baroque opera and opera-ballet with the New York Baroque Dance Company. In recent seasons, important performances have included Bach's Matthäus-Passion with the Children's Chorus of Greater Dallas; a music and dance presentation of the life of the black French composer Joseph Boulogne with Contemporary Ballet Dallas and the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts funded by an important New Works grant from TACA; the modern staged premiere of Rameau's Zéphyre with the New York Baroque Dance Company; and important recitals by Dutch recorder soloist Paul Leenhouts, tenor Dann Coakwell, countertenor Drew Minter, and gambist Brent Wissick, as well as French cantatas with Ann Monoyios and Bernard Deletré of the Paris Opera. Educational outreach features the new Baroque Break-out program in collaboration with Wilmer-Hutchins High School and other local high schools, funded by Dallas Arts and Culture.
Artistic Director and Conductor of the renowned Dallas Bach Society since 1995 as well as Music Director of the illustrious New York Baroque Dance Company, James Richman has distinguished himself as curator, scholar, and performer in the international circles of Baroque music and opera. A triple graduate of Harvard, Juilliard, and the Curtis Institute of Music, Maestro Richman is also known as a prominent harpsichordist and fortepianist.
He studied conducting with Max Rudolf and Herbert Blomstedt; piano with Mieczysław Horszowski, Rosina Lhé vinne, and Rudolf Serkin; and harpsichord with Albert Fuller and Kenneth Gilbert. At Harvard he received a B.A. in the History of Science, magna cum laude. A prizewinner in four international competitions for early keyboard instruments, he received first prize at the Bodky Competition of the Cambridge Society of Early Music, became a laureate of the Bruges Harpsichord Competition, and earned bronze medals at both the Paris Harpsichord Competition of the Festival Estival and the First International Fortepiano Competition (Paris). In 1995, the French government honored him by inducting him as Chevalier to the Order of Arts and Letters in recognition of his contributions to the art of music.
A specialist in the French Baroque, he has led over 200 performances of French Baroque opera and ballet, including Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Fêtes d'Hébé, Pygmalion, Les Indes Galantes, Castor et Pollux, and Le Temple de la Gloire by Jean-Philippe Rameau. In appearances at the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Spoleto Festival USA, the E. Nakamichi Baroque Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, as well as in regular series in New York, he has organised and led staged revivals of Rameau's works as well as Handel's Ariodante, Alessandro, Acis and Galatea, Il pastor fido and Terpsicore, Gluck's Orfeo, Purcell's King Arthur, Monteverdi's Incoronazione di Poppea, J.C. Bach's Amadis des Gaules, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Le Devin du village.
In recent summers Maestro Richman has conducted opera at the Hawaii Performing Arts Center, including Handel's Alcina and Giulio Cesare, Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, Purcell's The Fairy Queen and Dido and Aeneas. His Concert Royal ensemble was among the first Baroque orchestras in New York City, with ongoing series at Alice Tully Hall, the French Institute/Alliance Française, and at Princeton University. For more than 30 years the ensemble accompanied the Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys in annual concerts of Handel's Messiah and the Passions of J.S. Bach at Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue.
Recently Visiting scholar at Princeton, musicologist Malcolm Bruno lives in Wales. He is the editor of a number of ongoing major publications and reconstructions for Breitkopf & Härtel and Bärenreiter Verlag in Germany. Over the past 25 years he has also produced many recordings for major labels specialising in Baroque and choral repertoire, initially as Associate Director of the Taverner Consort & Players, and then as a series independent producer for BBC Radio 3 and Public Radio International in the USA. He is Artistic Director of Larvik Barokk in Norway where he also chairs the board of the ensemble Barokksolistene, which he founded with Bjarte Eike and Svein Eriksen in 2005. He is also a board member and artistic adviser to the Bach Choir of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, USA.
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