Strictly speaking, I didn’t do this, because the audience was split between the ‘mini-Messiah‘ in the afternoon and a full performance (with a few cuts) in the evening. But singing to a nearly-full Colston Hall was a change from the last concert I sang, which had an audience of about 20.
This was my first performance with Bristol Choral Society, and about my fifteenth performance of the Messiah. I won’t say that I had it off perfectly from memory, but I now know which bits to work on for next year.
Our orchestra was Music for Awhile. Sat in the front row, I had a good opportunity to see who played what, and realised just how lightly scored Messiah is, with oboes, bassoons and (sparingly used) trumpet being the only wind instruments in our performance. The Trumpet Shall Sound is the only place where any of them is used as an obbligato instrument. (Of course the situation is a bit more complicated as other instruments were added even in Handel’s day and the bassoons are optional. Mozart’s re-orchestration is still frequently performed). Once you’ve got a good enough trumpeter, the rest of the orchestra should fall into place quite easily.