New York Philharmonic. Ton Koopman, conductor/harpsichord. December 11, 2024.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat AA-102, $130).

After the first half of the concert.  The trumpets and timpani are not out yet.

Program

Messiah (1741) by Handel (1685-1759).

Artists

Maya Kherani, soprano; Maarten Engeltjes, countertenor; Kieren White, tenor; Klaus Mertens, bass-baritone.

Musica Sacra, chorus; Kent Trittle, director.

This was our second Messiah concert this season.  As usual, there are slight differences in the movements included in the oratorio.  Are there standard editions, or much depends on the needs of a particular performance.  (Somewhere I read there are 43 different versions of the 15 arias, all written by Handel.)

The orchestra took a while to settle down, so to speak.  I had a similar observation before, and attributed to the musicians' familiarity to the piece.  There probably were few rehearsals before tonight's performance, and this was the first of four performances.

This was a New York Phil debut for all four soloists, so it had to be a big deal.  I suppose they are all excellent vocalists, but they all put in somewhat uneven performances.  The tenor was the exception, he was solid throughout (if my memory serves).  Again this may be opening night jitters.  They all used paper scores.

The chorus did very well.  Anne thought the 16th-note runs were close to being staccato, which would be okay with me.  There were about 40 in the group, and their voices filled the auditorium.

Perhaps in keeping with Handel's time, the strings didn't use much vibrato, except every now and then someone would forget and moved his/her hand.

As far as I could tell, the violins were all women, and, except for the leader Staples, Asian.  (Just an observation.)  There wasn't a lot of harpsichord playing, but the organ was called on quite a bit.

There were seven of us attending this concert.  Five got on at the Hazlet station, Anne and I joined them when we boarded the train at South Amboy.  By mistake we got on an express subway that took us to 70th Street, so we ate at Legend Restaurant on 72nd.  We caught the 10:23 pm train back to NJ.

End of First Half of concert.  (I didn't manage any photograph with all the soloists and the conductor facing forward.)

The trumpets and timpani showed up for the second part of the concert.

Group photo of the seven of us, heading to the subway statin at the end of the concert.