“George Frideric Handel called his most enduringly popular oratorio simply Messiah—not The Messiah,” writes Scott Cantrell in Sunday’s (12/18) Dallas Morning News.“Indeed, given Handel’s multiple revisions of the work, there’s no such thing as THE Messiah. The Dallas Bach Society’s annual performances have mainly followed Handel’s late versions of the oratorio, as collected and edited by the late English musicologist Watkins Shaw. First published in the 1960s, including alternate versions of some numbers, the Shaw score has become pretty much the go-to modern edition. This year’s Bach Society concert, on Thursday at the Meyerson Symphony Center … will go back to Handel’s original manuscript and copy of the oratorio—a version that was never actually performed. Between composing the work in August and September 1741, and its first performance in Dublin, on April 13, 1742, Handel made numerous changes. He made many more for performances over the next decade … The Bach Society is using a new edition of Handel’s original scores … Issued in 2018 by the eminent German music publisher Bärenreiter, it’s the work of the musicologist Malcolm Bruno.”
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