Georg Friedrich Händel: Messiah (Early Version 1741)

George Frideric Handel‘s Messiah was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and subsequently reworked several times. However, an earlier version from 1741 exists, based on the composer‘s two autograph scores. The musicologist Malcolm Bruno has reconstructed this original version and published it with Breitkopf & Härtel. In this version, an independent woodwind section consisting of two oboes and bassoons can be heard, and there are also new discoveries to be made in the arias. Bruno is enthusiastic about the first recording of the „Ur-Messiah“ and hopes „that the listener has the experience of hearing the Messiah as if for a fi rst time, as if the ink of Handel’s manuscript were still wet“.