Kevin Sutton wrote:

>Whereas Bach and Handel certainly rank up there, I don't always consider
>them, or any baroque composer for that matter, up there as a "greatest
>ever" choral composer.  The reason is that in many cases, they treat the
>choir as another instrument in the orchestra and don't always compose to
>the strengths of a purely vocal ensemble.  ...

If we took a work by Handel and a work by Mendelssohn, replaced the
vocalists with a brass choir and found that the Handel still sounded great
while the Mendelssohn did not, then why does this take away from Handel's
"greatness" as a choral composer? I would think it would be in Handel's
favor if his music was great music regardless of the instruments.  True, it
may not be written specifically for the "character" of the instrument but
the fact that it still is interesting even when performed by other
instruments can't be a knock against him in my opinion.  I guess it doesn't
matter much because I don't like a whole lot of Handel's work anyway.

Wes Crone