Messiah at St Pauls
There are many people for whom Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without hearing Handel’s Messiah, and I am one of them. I was lucky enough to be amongst the large audience in St Paul’s Honiton on 21st December for a performance by The Sheldon Singers, with four excellent soloists and a full orchestra. Unusually for an amateur choir, the decision (a brave one) had been taken to perform the work in its entirety. Singing Messiah with small forces is not easy – the choir (only 28 singers) and the compact orchestra are very exposed – but as it turned out, they were right not to be daunted. If your previous experience of Messiah has been limited to the large scale, Huddersfield Choral Society-type offering, then I recommend you seek out a performance such as we heard at St Paul’s, and which is in fact what Handel intended.