Too Many ‘Messiahs’?
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Yes, it is one of the masterworks of music, and, yes, it is heartening to know that every December so many Gotham halls offer Handel’s “Messiah.” But am I the only music lover in town who’s over the “Hallelujah Chorus,” the twinkling star in the east, and the shepherds tending their flocks by night – tired, (well … sometimes) of even the most radiant diva rendition of “I Know that My Redeemer Liveth”?
It’s not that “Messiah” has lost any of its stature. But over familiarity can sully even so enduring a musical triumph as Handel’s. Besides, each holiday season now brings along with it centuries’ worth of rediscovered older music (and worthy pieces written since, as well). Many listeners demand other Christmas music, and there’s no place better to hear it than in New York City.
There have always been some “Messiah”-free offerings available – the Vienna Boys’ Choir, for example, are back at Carnegie Hall for a Sunday matinee on December 19 (during a week when Carnegie otherwise offers almost nothing but different orchestras’ competing “Messiahs”). But now there are many more to be savored.
At one of the city’s grandest houses of worship, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, they’re celebrating the holidays by reviving America’s earliest music. “Colonial Christmas: Christmastide in 19th Century America,” contains 18th-century hymns, fiddling from a 1799 music book collected by a military officer, and one of the least-known but extraordinary of American musical genres, shaped note hymns, also called Sacred Harp.
This multi-art, a cappella hymn singing is experiencing a nationwide revival. Still, Sacred Harp must be experienced at a real “sing,” where everyone in attendance makes the room or hall shake to the power of dozens of hymns. Go to www.fasola.org to find out where the nearest sing is to you; St. Bart’s has one at their parish house on East 50th Street on Sunday, December 19 at 2:30 p.m.
St. Bart’s has an even deeper reach of styles and periods on offer in “Veni, Emanuel,” on December 17, as the ensemble Adventori offers Christmas-related items from musical moderns Britten, Stravinsky, and Ives alongside medieval carols and pieces from the Renaissance. The next Friday, St. Bart’s own Boy and Girl Choruses, Choir and “Festival Brass” offer a “Joyous Christmas Concert” that should be fun, but be warned – everyone is urged to join in on carol singing.
A newer but increasingly prominent venue for outstanding music is the Upper East Side’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. On December 15 they host the Choir of Kings College, Cambridge, singing Britten’s “Ceremony of Carols” and “Quatre motets pour temps our Noel.” Four nights later St. Ignatius’s own forces gather for a formidable mix of centuries of music in their annual Christmas concert.
If you can’t get out to see a show, there are even more possibilities.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) had few opportunities to compose operas, thanks to his rival Lully’s control of the French music scene (he was a favorite of Louis XIV). Fortunately for us, this kept Charpentier in church. Aside from his always famous “Te Deum” and “Oratorio de Noel,” there are rarer, delightful creations such as his “In Nativitatem Domino Canticum”(H416) and his “Messe de Minuit” (H9).
For the ultimate French Baroque experience on record, only one ensemble satisfies: Les Arts Florissants, founded and led by the American William Christie. Their recordings appear on the Harmonia Mundi and Erato labels.
A much more recent and daring Christmas choice would be Olivier Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus” (“20 Ways of Looking at Baby Jesus,” as Francophile Wallace Stevens might have translated it). There’s a brand-new reissue of Peter Serkin’s gorgeous 1973 recording of this challenging landmark in 20th-century piano music. Messiaen (1908-92) is one of the only devoutly religious postwar composers to be welcomed into the increasingly, even belligerently secular classical canon. “Vingt Regards” is on RCA’s Red Seal.
Another composer who’s become a surprise hit in record stores and concert halls is the contemporary Englishman John Tavener (a descendant of the late-Renaissance English composer John Taverner, currently much in vogue among early music ensembles). The best introduction to Mr. Tavener’s fervent, wide-ranging art, rooted in the sounds and visions of Eastern Christianity is the collection “Byzantia,” which contains his Christmas proclamation “God is with us.”
Mr. Tavener can make you believe again that music has a saving, religious grace – not a common new-music experience. “Byzantium” is on Virgin Classics. Listeners might also give a try to John Adams’s “El Nino,” a Christmas oratorio recorded by Nonesuch and available also on DVD by Naxos.
But there is so much other music to be savored this Yuletide! There’s Chanticleer’s “How Sweet the Sound” (WarnerClassics), a brand-new assemblage of spirituals and gospel music done with the verve and beauty only this group of 12 singing men can offer. A more traditional Chanticleer choice is “Our Heart’s Joy,” an early album of Christmas music newly remastered, containing their popular holiday encore, Franz Biebl’s “Ave Maria.” If the records hook you, try their “Christmas with Chanticleer” DVD, taped a few seasons ago in the Metropolitan Museum’s medieval sculpture court.
Then there’s Anonymous Four’s classic album of very old English music, “On Yoolis Night,” and their new “American Angels” (both on Harmonia Mundi), which includes several Sacred Harp numbers. Both have the special blend of devotion and iconoclasm that invested this just-retired group’s sound with novelty and pleasure.
With an extra assist from the best popular culture can offer (the single greatest rendition of a Christmas song, Judy Garland’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” can be seen in the 1944 film “Meet Me in St. Louis” – just out on in a perfect DVD transfer), we can make it to New Year’s with a lot less moping and plenty of song in our hearts.
None of which will require you to sing “Hallelujah!” But you may want to, anyway.
FOR TICKETS
CARNEGIE HALL
Vienna Boys’ Choir
December 19, 2 p.m.
(57th Street at Seventh Avenue, 212-247-7800).
ST . JOHN THE DIVINE
Colonial Christmas
December 18, 25 & 26 at 8 p.m. and December 19, 25 & 26 at 3 p.m.
(1047 Amsterdam Avenue, between 111th and 112th Streets, 212-581-1212).
ST . BART’S
Veni, Emanuel
December 17, 7:30 p.m.
St. Bart’s Boy and Girl Choruses, Choir and Festival Brass
December 21, 7:30 p.m.
(109 E. 50th Street, between Lexington and Park Avenues, 212-378-0248).
CHURCH OF ST . IGNATIUS LOYOLA
Choir of King’s College
December 15, 8 p.m.
St . Ignatius Choir
December 19, 4 p.m.
(980 Park Avenue at 84th Street, 212-288-2520).