Handel's Messiah: The New Interactive Edition

Abstract

(European Composers Series.) Interactive CD-ROM for IBM PC and compatibles. Sunhawk Corporation, 1997. $49.95. Requires multimedia PC or compatible, Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0, 16 MB RAM, 3 MB free hard-disk space, MIDI/WAVE sound card (MIDI wave-table sound card recommended), 486/66 DX2 (32-bit) processor (Pentium recommended), double-speed CD-ROM drive, VGA+ display (256 colors; SVGA 1024 x 768 with 65,536 colors recommended), headphones or speakers, mouse, and keyboard; a laser printer is optional but recommended. Previous applications of multimedia technology for music, such as the pioneering Voyager series (of which Robert Winter's treatment of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 led the way), have emphasized instruction and study. Now that access to computer technology and the Internet have become ubiquitous, a new trend geared toward the performer has emerged. Sunhawk Corporation, based in Seattle and founded by former Microsoft software engineers, is attempting to carve a major niche in this market. In addition to providing sheet music, Sunhawk has developed a player that allows the user to manipulate the playback and the display of the music. The product under review represents a major undertaking of this nature on CD-ROM. One has to admire the choice of Handel's Messiah for this treatment, for it is probably the most popular and most frequently performed of all classical choral works. In addition to the numerous performances and sing-alongs each year, excerpts are often performed by amateur church choirs and choral societies, creating a large potential audience for the product. The program consists of four major sections: a foreword by Kenneth Nott of the University of Hartford, a music list and score selection menu, text and sources (which can be exported to a file for printed programs and other purposes), and the Solero viewer that provides the playback and display of the music. Kenneth Nott's brief foreword offers informative historical background on the circumstances surrounding the composition and first performance of Messiah but does not provide detailed analysis. Since the product is geared toward performers, this lack of detail is understandable, but some notes on performance practice (e.g., treatment of appoggiaturas, trills, and dynamics) would have been desirable, especially considering that older editions (ones in the public domain) have been chosen for the onscreen display. The heart of the program is clearly the Music menu. Here one can select individual movements from the music list, determine the type of score to be displayed (vocal, orchestral, autograph, or the 1767 Randall & Abell edition), and add selections to a play list. One can then either play the selected pieces or view/play them using the built-in Solero viewer. Individual movements may be sorted sequentially, alphabetically, or by genre (arias, choruses, recitatives, etc.). It is also possible to play the music selections while the entire program is minimized so that the user can use the computer for other tasks while listening to the music. Vocal and orchestral scores were scanned and then engraved using music editing software; this process allowed Sunhawk to add MIDI files for simultaneous playback and display. The Randall & Abell edition was photographed from the copy in the Sibley Music Library of the Eastman School of Music, digitized, and then compressed to fit on the CD-ROM. The vocal score used for this product is the Max Spicker edition, which provides no clues for the naive performer on the placement of appoggiaturas. The introduction to the printed edition provides some instruction, but unfortunately the introduction was not reproduced for this CD-ROM. The orchestral score is a reproduction of the Ebenezer Prout edition, which retains some of the instrumentation added by Mozart, including clarinets and horns. The autograph and Randall & Abell scores allow some comparisons to be made with the other editions available on the CD-ROM. …