Heads Up: Music and Dance Preview : CLASSICAL & DANCE

On this list of music and dance events to look forward to in 1998 are two very personal recommendations. One is a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” in an edition that galvanized my thinking about the masterwork. The other is the visit of my hometown band, the Philadelphia Orchestra.

First, the “Messiah.” The music business lately has gotten into the authentic Baroque performance game. As a result, “Messiah,” the perennial Christmas offering, has been subjected to uncountable abuses, all supported by the dubious claim that “this is how Handel heard it,” or, worse, “this is how Handel wanted it.”

Don’t believe it. The fact is, we don’t know. The revival idea isn’t new. One of its great pioneers was Basil Lam, who in 1947 began working on a long series of performing editions of Handel’s music.

In the case of “Messiah,” Lam worked from the autograph score. But, more important, he added ornaments to the vocal and orchestral parts in the Handelian style. (Singers of the day were expected to embellish their lines.) He clarified rhythms and bowing, among other matters, and freely admitted that because Handel revised the work with almost every performance, depending on the available soloists, no definitive edition could ever exist.

William Hall will lead his Master Chorale in the Lam edition of “Messiah” on March 29 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach. Hall has further edited the score.

Growing up outside Philadelphia, I had many chances to hear the mighty Philadelphians, one of America’s five major orchestras in those days, under the inspired--and, today, largely underappreciated--leadership of Eugene Ormandy.

At the Academy of Music, I heard the orchestra from the folding chairs placed between the front of the stage and the first row of patron seats. From that angle, Ormandy was visible only from the waist up, but the sound was terrific. In summer concerts at Robin Hood Dell, I would sit on benches or sprawl on the lawn for an early taste of the Hollywood Bowl experience.

The Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Wolfgang Sawallisch comes to the Orange County Performing Arts Center for two different programs May 15 and 17.

For a sampling of a far less well-known period of early music, the Chanticleer Mexican Baroque will perform at the Irvine Barclay Theatre on May 4. For something more up to date, go hear the Kronos Quartet in a staged performance of Tan Dun’s “Ghost Opera” at the Irvine Barclay on Jan. 27. Both of these events are presented by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, which also sponsors the Philadelphians.

In dance, there is something traditional and something experimental. The Orange County Performing Arts Center brings in the National Ballet of Cuba from Jan. 20-25 for a traditional story-ballet, “Cinderella.” The Barclay, home of the more avant-garde in dance, will present Elizabeth Streb’s Ringside company Feb. 3. Streb’s dancers walk on walls and swim through the air with the aid of harnesses. Gymnastics or a new kind of dance? You decide.