On 15 Jan 2007 at 17:22, John Howell wrote: > At 7:45 PM +0100 1/15/07, Johannes Gebauer wrote: > > > >That is not to say there were no larger orchestral performances. > >Handel's Messiah is a good example. > > Oh?? I doubt his orchestra was more than 20, and about the same for > his chorus. Mozart was the first to start expanding the size of the > Messiah orchestra. Handel's was string band, oboes, trumpet (or was > it 2?), and probably bassoon in addition to basso continuo.
I don't have the references handy, but I'm pretty sure there was at least one performance of Messiah in Handel's lifetime with Handel's participation where the orchestra and chorus were both large in the modern sense, i.e., 100+ players and 200+ singers. But I can't find any citation for that (though I didn't look too hard). -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
