‘Messiahs’ Offer Studies in Contrast

“In some quarters,” wrote the ever-perceptive musicologist Winton Dean, Handel’s “Messiah” “retains the quality of a fetish.” He might have been talking about the Southland at Christmastime.

This season, virtually every choral organization under our sun will present at least part of a “Messiah,” sung by boys, Mormons, college glee clubs and community groups, from Yucaipa churches to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

There will be numerous sing-along “Messiahs” too, in which the audience makes up or supplements the chorus. All this despite the fact that Handel’s oratorio wasn’t written as a Christmas piece and doesn’t even tell the Christmas story.

Nevertheless, over the weekend, two of our better local orchestras--both in transition--opened their 1996-97 seasons with the work. Saturday, the financially challenged Glendale Symphony teamed with the Angeles Chorale under the baton of Donald Neuen in Glendale’s Alex Theatre; Sunday found the Asia America Symphony (formerly the Japan America Symphony), the Korean Master Chorale and the UC Santa Barbara Chamber Choir under Heiichiro Ohyama’s guidance at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

The two performances were drastically different. Neuen opted for swift and bouncy tempos, the choruses filled with dance-like energy. Ohyama’s tempos were slow and lilting--flowing and dainty in feel. Neuen emphasized words.

The sculpted shapes and springing rhythms he coaxed from the Angeles Chorale began with the text--every T crossed and I dotted. Ohyama focused on the music, shaping lyrical curves, sensitive colorations and dovetails. Neuen concluded the big choruses with grand, thrilling, oratorical perorations; Ohyama dispersed them in evaporating mists, diminuendo.

The Glendale Symphony performed with sturdy spirit if not consistent finish. Ohyama produced transparent textures with his polished orchestra, which he reduced to trios and quintets in aria accompaniments. The Angeles Chorale sang with remarkable agility and brightness. The Cerritos choirs were pretty and pale.

Both “Messiahs” boasted reliable and astute soloists. In Glendale, Holly Shaw Price, Kathie Freeman, Bruce Johnson and Peter Klaveness delineated expertly, the men with special force. In Cerritos, Hyunjoo Kwak Lee, Jacqueline Zander, William Hite and Christopheren Nomura were a more lyrical and luxuriantly voiced bunch; Hite boldly pointed, Nomura chocolatey and persuasive, Lee pure loveliness.

The most charged moment came in Neuen’s “For unto us a Child is born”--each of its “Wonderful” pronouncements more so than the last. All in all, it was a good weekend for fetishes.