Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 16, 1994 TAG: 9412190024
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Sandborg, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the Roanoke Valley Choral Society will unveil a distinctly different-sounding ``Messiah'' by George Frederick Handel at 4 on Sunday afternoon in the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium.
The veteran choral conductor says that it will be the first American ``Messiah'' that incorporates certain ideas that have been percolating in his musical imagination for years.
Those ideas entail risk. ``There may be people who don't like this at all. This will be radical to some people's ears,'' Sandborg acknowledged.
All the more so because Christmas-season ``Messiahs'' are a tradition in Roanoke and elsewhere, with audiences who like the piece the way they've always known it. But firsts are nothing new for this conductor and chorus, which gave the American premiere of Joonas Kokkonen's ``Requiem'' in Roanoke a few years ago.
It's not just that the concert stage will look radically different, with a split chorus surrounding a stripped-down version of the Roanoke Symphony.
The big innovations will come when a solo vocal quartet does a number of choruses that ``Messiah''-lovers are accustomed to hearing from a full choir. Sandborg has also arranged the orchestral score to accommodate a small concertino group of soloist-quality instrumentalists alternating with a larger ripieno group consisting of the rest of the orchestra.
He has also scratched out a number of unison violin obbligato passages that customarily accompany vocal solos and replaced them with solo obbligato from violinist Benedict Goodfriend.
None of this may sound all that chancy to people in other lines of work. But in the tradition-encrusted world of baroque music, it's a little like Evel Knievel shooting the Snake River Canyon on a jet-ski.
``We don't know whether some of these things are gonna work till we actually get on stage and experiment with it,'' said Sandborg, who won't be able to get all his forces together for rehearsal till the very weekend of the performance.
The changes Sandborg has in mind for this ``Messiah'' performance - which will include the complete work - are not arbitrary innovations, he says. They're the consequence of conducting the work repeatedly over the decades, musicological research, and pondering the meaning of certain cryptic notes appended to the score by Handel himself.
``The thing which people who love this piece don't realize is that every reading of 'Messiah' is a series of choices: ornamentation, tempi, the size of the orchestra and of the chorus, the distribution of the solos.
``The realization of baroque music has very large parameters. Oftentimes conductors will become comfortable with convenient traditions. We're doing something that's outside tradition but, I think, within the realm of authenticity,'' said Sandborg.
The conductor came across a comment by the eminent Handel scholar Alfred Mann noting that Handel paid higher fees to some players in an early performance of the oratorio, suggesting that he employed more expensive solo instrumentalists. Then there's what Sandborg calls the ``tantalizing'' fact that, for a single performance, the composer jotted instructions for concertino and ripieno groups.
The conductor also found early photographs and diagrams showing a stage set-up precisely the opposite of what prevails today, with the chorus in front, and the orchestra on risers behind the singers. Though unable to reproduce this exact arrangement on the Roanoke Civic Center stage, Sandborg has settled on a compromise, with his singers on both sides of the players.
``Messiah'' fans will notice that choruses such as ``He Shall Purify,'' ``For Unto Us'' and ``All We Like Sheep'' will be sung by soloists instead of the customary complete choir. These sections, says Sandborg, are ``ferociously difficult'' and were probably beyond the ability of the average amateur chorus even in Handel's day.
``The music has always suggested to me that this could not be done by amateur singers because [the ornamentation] is so florid. In the many times that I've conducted it, these choruses are always the bugaboo,'' said Sandborg.
The solo quartet includes soprano Nicole Heaston, alto Diane Thornton, tenor Brad Diamond, and bass Craig Priebe. Priebe did a ``Messiah'' with the RSO in 1992.
For this performance, the conductor is collaborating with Benedict Goodfriend of the Kandinsky Trio, who studied baroque ornamentation with his teacher Sergiu Luca. Goodfriend will accompany vocal soloists with ornamentation that's usually done by the entire violin section. Goodfriend's Kandinsky Trio, including cellist Alan Weinstein and pianist Elizabeth Bachelder, will form the core of the concertino group for Sunday's ``Messiah.''
'Messiah' performance will be radically different
Handel's ``Messiah'': SOLD OUT. Sunday, 4 p.m., Roanoke Civic Center. The concert by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the Roanoke Valley Choral Society will be broadcast live by public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM).
by CNB