This year’s Classic FM Gramophone Awards have just been announced. The winners are selected by 15 worldwide classical radio networks, with a combined audience of 14 million listeners, and this year the judges got it absolutely right when they selected John Butt and the Dunedin Consort and Players’ recording of the 1742 Dublin version of Messiah (Linn Records) as winner in the Baroque Vocal Category. Replicating the tiny performance forces available to Handel for the work’s premiere, Butt uses only 12 singers, including soloists, allowing the ensemble to perform with the kind of nimble choral coloratura that’s impossible with the gargantuan choruses that often attempt the work. The soloists have youthful and unmannered, but disciplined, voices, and they communicate the text with the intimacy and urgency of the best folk singers — they sound like they’re telling a personal and deeply felt story. The revelatory performance achieves something that might have been considered impossible — it allows the listener to hear Messiah, easily the most abused piece in choral literature, with fresh ears, as exquisite choral chamber music.

Messiah, Dunedin Consort and Players
“And He shall purify”
“He shall feed His flock”
“All we like sheep”