The "Mozart" Messiah, used in the Royce Hall performance, was an occasion of misguided exhumation. For every new touch that might properly be linked to a Mozartian sensibility — the notion of starting some of the big choral numbers with just a vocal quartet so as to enhance the big-bang entry by the chorus later on, the timpani under the great outbursts in "For unto us a Child is born" — there were other moments in which the familiar Mozartian orchestral magic, of winds and horns in rich harmony, or of the strings dancing out a countermelody above one of Handel's solemn tunes, were simply alien to enlightened 2003 ears. If such stiff-backed tributes to the ideals of the past must be inflicted on us, better so at least with the marvelous winds and brass of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. It would be even better so, however, with the unbroken strength of Handel's masterpiece as he himself had once dreamed it, not yet in need of fixing.
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