A Messiah to send Hippites rushing for the smelling salts ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If Mozart couldn't improve on Handel then how can anyone expect Andrew Davis to.

Well, there's an assumption! Perhaps, just perhaps, Mozart did improve on Handel. (I don't think Andrew Davis has though.)

[Barbirollians]

Well, there's an assumption! Perhaps, just perhaps, Mozart did improve on Handel. (I don't think Andrew Davis has though.)

I recall that Mozart was plain he did not regard his version as an improvement but to match playing styles of the late 1780s . I read somewhere that he took out the high trumpet parts because the skill of playing them had been lost .

I like Mozart's version especially in the Mackerras recording .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I read somewhere that he took out the high trumpet parts because the skill of playing them had been lost .

That's quite true. The Trumpet Shall Sound is a travesty of the original. Mozart rewrote much of the trumpet obligato, and gave much of it to the French horn.

[Alison]

Judging by the extracts on the Presto site, that new A Davis version is ghastly indeed, with some curious decisions (a clarinet solo for 'I know that my redeemer'), and some risible ones (that tam-tam stroke at the beginning of 'Worthy').

That sounds crazy ... and yet almost makes me want to hear this version!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That sounds crazy ... and yet almost makes me want to hear this version!

Beecham used Mozart as his basis. Davis 's seems far removed from Mozart and Handel, but it's still interesting.

I've often wished for a more modern recording of the Beecham score, but that was not to be. I think Lady Beecham authorised a single live performance a few years ago.