Handel - Messiah / Cleobury, Dawson, Summers, Brandenburg Consort

Rating:
Summary: Superb setting, excellent performance
Review: The setting of the Messiah in Pieterskerk made the performance even more fabulous. Would highly recommend this DVD to anyone!

Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: There is little fault to be found in this DVD. The vocal soloists are superb, and the orchestra with their period instruments are near perfect. This is an inspiring performance that is delivered with crispness, is worth listening to again and again -- and not just at Christmas. There are some minor flaws that go with performing in front of a live audience, but because everything else is so well done it is easy to overlook them.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: There is little fault to be found in this DVD. The vocal soloists are superb, and the orchestra with their period instruments are near perfect. This is an inspiring performance that is delivered with crispness, is worth listening to again and again -- and not just at Christmas. There are some minor flaws that go with performing in front of a live audience, but because everything else is so well done it is easy to overlook them.

Rating:
Summary: The most complete DVD of Handel
Review: This DVD contains spectacular sounds and images, and is the most complete in audio tracks. The major desapointment in this DVD is that the camera keeps filming the same boys, it seems that the parents of the childrend payed the camera man to do so... in some ocasions in the major tracks like ( Hallelujah ), you see people walking in front of the camera, and the camera films the back of the choir and the trumpets insted of the choir itself from the front. In other words, this DVD is a best buy for the sound, image, and content. The children and boys made an extraordinary performence. You wont be desapointed.

Rating:
Summary: Not only for the Xmas...
Review: This DVD is a nice surprise: a very good version of Handel's Messiah. Although here we don't see any pretensions of authenticity (like in some performances with no oboes/bassoons, or with the soloists forming part of the choir, etc.), is very authentic indeed. Using the 1752 version, we have a small orchestra, with period instruments (The Brandenburg Consort, including two trumpets, an organ and a harpsichord), and an all-male choir (King's College) - the sopranos are boys with beautiful voices. An excellent team of soloists: the bass (Alastair Miles) haves a strong voice, very adequate to this work; Hillary Summers is a true contralto, with an outstanding timbre, secure at low notes. John Mark Ainsley and Lynne Dawson completes the team - they sing very well, easily in the most difficult passages. Conducting, Stephen Cleobury, an specialist in this field.
The venue is an old church (twelfth century) at the Netherlands, with candle-lit interior: a very calm, pious atmosphere (but some people in the audience must be send to an hospital, to heal his coughing... thank God , they choose to cough only at the moments between the chapters). Camera work is good, with minor faults (like the passage of the trumpeters in front of the camera at the start of "Hallelujah" chorus). But technically speaking, the quality is excellent, as occurs with the sound Dolby 5.1(personally, I would prefer listen more the winds, and less the harpsichord, but the balance of this DVD don't bothered me ).
Unfortunately, there's not extras or subtitles, but you can easily find the chapters (it doesn't occurs in the Haydn's "Schoepfung" DVD, with Schreier conducting).
I'm very satisfied with my copy: the Messiah is a work that lives in my heart - the most wonderful music, the most beautiful message.