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Title: Good theory, poor practice
Review: The idea of doing Messiah with a Wagnerian orchestra is interesting. But it needs the orchestral genius of a Wagner or Tchaikovsky, and Beecham doesn't have that. It almost seems as if the orchestration is done by a random process. There is no meaning in the changes of color. Whether this is Beecham's fault, or whether it demonstrates that Handel as Wagner doesn't work, will have to be left to a future orchestrator to resolve.Regarding the actual performance, I find it undistiguished. Not the worst (Bonynge gets that title), but not worth a second listen.
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