"...one would have to be extremely inflexible not to find Mozart's tinkering fascinating on its own terms. Those terms include a German text, a version...

"...one would have to be extremely inflexible not to find Mozart's tinkering fascinating on its own terms. Those terms include a German text, a version of "The Trumpet Shall Sound" that features the French horn, a quartet setting of "And He Shall Purify" and the deletion of a few arias and choruses.

But Mozart's wind and brass additions -- in the Sinfonia, "All We Like Sheep" and "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth," for example -- give his version a wonderful, distinct character. Mozart's voice hardly drowns out Handel's, but his commentary makes for an enlivening alternative to the standard "Messiah." Helmuth Rilling's lively, warm-toned reading is both inviting and persuasive." - Alan Kozinn, New York Times