Eric Kisch wrote: >And for the record, Sir Charles made very fine recordings of Messiah >and Israel in Egypt. Not original instruments but HIP enough for light >textures and plenty of bounce - - as well as the necessary Handelian >grandeur. There might be light textures and plenty of bounce, but those modern strings ruin it for me. I think highly of Mackerras in most of the repertoire he has recorded, but his Handel I can not appreciate. In the Terfel Handel aria disc, Mackerras was the conductor, and he did a very poor job. He managed to make Handel sound ordinary to me, and that's not easy to do. He took the life out of Handel's music. Don