Hänssler Classic: Handel — Der Messias / The Messiah Highlights, Rilling (Audio CD)

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Product Details:

• Product Type: Audio CD
• Brand / Label: Hänssler Classic
• Composer: Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759)
• Arrangement: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, KV 572
• Conductor: Helmuth Rilling
• Catalog Number: CD 98.299
• UPC: 4010276020288
• Release Year: 2007 (this edition); recording © 1991
• Genre: Classical
• Style: Baroque oratorio (Mozart arrangement), sacred choral

Product Features

• Format: CD
• Discs: 1
• Tracks: 21 (Highlights selection)
• Total runtime: 63:12
• Recording: DDD
• Language: Sung in German (Der Messias)
• Soloists: Donna Brown (soprano I), Cornelia Kallisch (soprano II), Roberto Saccà (tenor), Alastair Miles (bass)
• Ensembles: Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart
• Made in Germany
• Condition: Factory Sealed (New)

Overview

This is Handel's Messiah heard through Mozart's ears. In 1789, decades after Handel's death, Mozart re-orchestrated the oratorio for a Vienna performance — adding clarinets, flutes and horns, thickening the wind writing and giving the choruses a Classical-era warmth. The result, catalogued as KV 572, is a fascinating hybrid: Handel's architecture under Mozart's coloring. This disc collects the highlights, sung in the German singing translation.

Helmuth Rilling is the natural guide here. Few conductors have done more for the German sacred-choral repertoire, and his Stuttgart forces — the Gächinger Kantorei and the Bach-Collegium — bring transparency and bite rather than mass. The choruses move; "Halleluja" and "Würdig ist das Lamm" land with weight but never bog down.

The 21-track selection covers the essentials across all three parts, from the Overture through "Uns ist zum Heil ein Kind geboren," the great "Halleluja," the soprano "Ich weiß, dass mein Erlöser lebt," and the closing "Amen." A clean, well-recorded entry point for anyone curious about the Mozart version, and a satisfying single disc for listeners who want the peaks without the full three-hour span.

Interesting Facts

• Mozart arranged Handel's Messiah in 1789 at the request of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, expanding the orchestration for contemporary Viennese taste; it is catalogued as KV 572.
• The Mozart version is sung in German ("Der Messias"), using a German singing translation rather than Handel's original English text.
• Helmuth Rilling founded the Gächinger Kantorei in 1954 and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart in 1965, ensembles central to his lifelong advocacy of sacred choral music.
• Rilling was the first conductor to record the complete sacred and secular cantatas of J.S. Bach, a project spanning decades.
• The bass soloist Alastair Miles is one of Britain's most recorded oratorio and opera singers, widely heard in Handel and Verdi.
• The underlying recording dates from 1991 (Hänssler Verlag), reissued in this Highlights edition in 2007.

Track Listing

1. Ouvertüre — 2:52
2. Tröstet Zion — 3:01
3. Alle Tale macht hoch und erhaben — 3:19
4. O du, die Wonne verkündet in Zion — 3:50
5. O du, die Wonne verkündet in Zion — 1:41
6. Uns ist zum Heil ein Kind geboren — 3:55
7. Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe! — 1:42
8. Er weidet seine Herde — 5:22
9. Kommt her und seht das Lamm! — 2:21
10. Er ward verschmähet — 11:32
11. Wahrlich, wahrlich! Er litt unsre Qual — 1:59
12. Er ist dahin aus dem Lande der Lebenden — 0:32
13. Doch du ließest ihn im Grabe nicht — 2:12
14. Wie lieblich ist der Boten Schritt — 2:08
15. Warum entbrennen die Heiden — 4:52
16. Halleluja — 4:15
17. Ich weiß, dass mein Erlöser lebt — 5:24
18. Wie durch Einen der Tod — 2:10
19. Sie schallt, die Posaun' — 2:26
20. Würdig ist das Lamm — 3:35
21. Amen — 3:08

Publishers

Released by Hänssler Classic (Hänssler Verlag), Holzgerlingen, Germany. Recording © 1991; this Highlights edition ℗ 2007. Made in Germany. Label code LC 06047.

Have this recording? A short review helps fellow Handel and Rilling collectors.