This is not the Messiah you're looking for

Mom and Larry and I went to the Mesa Arts Center tonight to hear the Phoenix Symphony perform Handel's Messiah. Not the highlights, either, the whole thing. Which was odd, since they only had half the symphony there. I thought the soloists were very talented, including, interestingly, a countertenor, who sang in a really high falsetto which was apparently a normal part of baroque, religious music.

One of my favorite pieces is "the trumpet shall sound" which showcases the clarion call of a silver trumpet. The whole piece is about the trumpet at the end of the world, which signals the dead to rise alive, a call to rapture. I would imagine that if I were playing this piece, I would imagine myself as one of the archangels, signaling the rapture. This trumpeter played as if he imagined himself trying to communicate what a trumpet sounds like. It was just weak weak weak, and he threw in a little trill at the end like "that's all folks!"

Overall, I was underwhelmed by the performance. Partly because we were way in the back, partly because we had a skeleton orchestra, and partly because the orchestra just sounded a bit sloppy. Actually, there were a few people in my row who didn't return after intermission. Still, I've been to many performances of Messiah, and this was about a middling rendition.