The Messiah XXI

I was a bit confused by this musical account of what is called the "Young Messiah XXI". What took me off guard is the similarity of name that it has with the "Young Messiah" tour of 1995/1996. The older arrangement was an obviously Christian message and celebration of the birth of Christ. Both share a common thread of contemporary arrangements wrapped around the classic "Handel's Messiah". This new account even uses some of the exact arrangements used in the original. The Christian celebration aspect that the original is all about was quite absent in the new version. In fact, the narration was of a character that had obvious disbelief in a savior born of a virgin. His part is titled "Beware of false prophets" which has a tone that disrupts the basic Christian belief of Christ. He states in the reading that the "Messiah is music". Huh? Where did that come from? I find it disturbing this new account basically plagiarized many elements of the original "Young Messiah" and it was used to hide this Trojan horse of a message. If atheists and agnostics want to preach their religion, fine; they should do it with their own musical "talents" and not steal and pervert those artistic expressions that were already created and that are distinctly Christian. A disappointment is an understatement for this film!

I'm not a big fan of R&B, but I think even if I were, I would be disappointed by this effort. The soloists and the R&B chorus are not up to Handel's beautiful material; the electronic instruments are simply ill-suited to it.

Even worse, the classical orchestra and the classical chorus, who actually do justice to the music, are under-miked and cannot compete in volume with the over-miked R&B singers and the electronic instruments.

If you simply cannot stand classical music, I suppose that listening to this version is better than listening to no version of Handel's Messiah at all. But please, if you can, do listen to the original as it was meant to be heard -- it is a passionate piece of religious art that can transport your spirit. This effort is a pale shadow of Handel's inspirational beauty.

Courtesy of a friend, I finally got a look at this show--not quite for Easter, but pretty close--and got to see first hand what the funding flap was about. It's a good show--definitely a collision of styles, but well integrated. Well attended, too. There's a big audience.

From what everybody said, I'd expected the whole thing to be R&B, but they have the classical chorus there after all. The R&B choir and soloists perform against the backdrop of the classical rendition, and they end up with a nice contrast. Gladys Knight is terrific, as is Jeffery Osbourne, and I think they both loved doing it. Knight really carried the whole thing. She had minor problems converting the style, but nothing serious, and just glowed during her solos. As everybody said, Chaka Kahn is the weakest, but it's a matter of energy rather than style. She's perfectly competent at R&B.

So Roger Daltrey is a strange addition to this little group of artists. You'd suspect maybe Jeffery Osbourne recommended him. I seem to recall Osbourne worked with the British Rock Symphony one summer. Anyhow, Daltrey has a talent for suggesting different styles. He has a tendency to suggest the classical here (slight range problems these days, but still very gripping), and provided the important transition to the R&B. He did a short solo with the R&B artists at the finale, and doesn't quite have that "horrible vibrato" down yet, but he blended very well.

If an official version of this ever gets to be widely available, I'd certainly recommend it. I think I'd be somewhat bored at a performance of the original "Messiah." It's very powerful music, but the whole thing is so long and so dense that generally what you get is just a couple of excerpts instead of the whole deal. Adding the R&B segements broke it up and made it something completely new and entertaining.