MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewKeates would like his readers to believe that although the 'Messiah,' and indeed Handel, was never entirely forgotten — particularly in his adopted home, England — his immense output, and especially his operas, suffered neglect ... Keates constructs a history of two centuries of misuse and misinterpretation from which we have now, thankfully, been rescued ... This makes for a neat and tidy story, but it is based on a prejudice. Keates is all too persuaded by the objective correctness of the 20th-century effort to define original, authentic Baroque performance practices ... Jonathan Keates’s short book is designed to give the general reader a succinct introduction to the 'Messiah' and to illuminate why it has retained its hold over us.
