Reviewed by Tony Cummings

The larger-than-life English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) was celebrated for many things, one of them his stirling work of rescuing Handel's Messiah from the stifling clutches of the bloated 19th century traditionalism and from the purist efforts with their parsimonious handful of strings and oboes. His recording of Handel's masterpiece here is not the exotic rendition of the work in 1959 which has come to be known as 'The Beecham Messiah', but this finest recording of the work which took place in Westminster Central Hall in 1927 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Thanks to the technical wizardry of the engineers used on this double CD reissue of the original 78s, the sound quality is startlingly good and they've also used unbroken background ambience between pieces. The soloists, Dora Labbette (soprano), Muriel Brunskill (contralto) and Harold Williams (bass/baritone) all do well with only tenor Hubert Eisdell sounding past his best while the choir passages are stunning in their impact. A piece of musical history.