Who is popular today?

Handel with Hammond organ and hand claps. Scatting and swing. Five saxophones – this is Messiah, but not perhaps as you know it. Marin Alsop’s Gospel Messiah had its European premiere at the Royal Albert Hall on 7 December, ahead of a broadcast on BBC Radio 3 tonightThirty years ago conductor Marin Alsop was chatting with friends in New York. “They asked what I was up to,” she says. “I told them, ‘Handel’s Messiah’. They said ‘The one where the audience stand up for the Hallelujah Chorus at the end? I like that bit but it takes too long until that happens!”Why not try an update, thought Alsop. “I had always wanted to reimagine it – it lends itself to lots of different feels, and I wanted new audiences to hear the piece.” The 1741 work has been endlessly embellished, tweaked and reimagined, even by Handel himself. Mozart was commissioned to rewrite it with more woodwind. While Handel’s original choir had numbered 20 or so and the orchestra not many more, by the 1850s, there were performances with thousands of singers and nearly 500 musicians. In 1992, Quincy Jones rethought it as the Grammy-winning A Soulful Celebration – and its Hallelujah Chorus is one of the world’s most instantly recognisable (and most memed) pieces of classical music. This month – like every December – there are performances all over the world from Philadelphia to Paris and Perth - both Scotland’s and Australia’s.Marin Alsop rehearses the BBC Concert Orchestra, the big band, and the choir (the London Adventist Chorale with the BBC Symphony Chorus) at Henry Wood Hall, London SE1. Middle right: South African tenor soloist Zwakele Tshabalala with Karin Hendrickson, who is assisting Marin Alsop. Continue reading...