Too close for comfort...

I was scanning YouTube this morning looking for good examples of historically informed and not-so-historically informed performances. I'd already been having a great time listening (off-tube) to Leonard Bernstein's classic Messiah recording (the overture is just overwhelming, in every way, and exactly twice as long as my Boston Baroque version), and I thought maybe I could find some good footage of baroque trumpets in action with "The Trumpet Shall Sound." (I had a memorable experience shifting uncomfortably in my seat listening to Boston Baroque's troubled trumpeter in a live performance many years ago.) I did not expect to encounter this, however.


I don't think that's historically informed camera work, since history informs us that people run screaming from rooms when they see a closeup that frightening. (Nice trumpet playing though...)

UPDATE: Seriously, what's up with this guy? He never blinks. Did they edit the blinks out? You can see here and here other soloists from the same performance. They're also featured in scary close-ups - but, they also seem to be human . . . because they blink. The guy featured above looks down at his music a lot as the aria gets going, so he doesn't have superhuman memory, but there's something odd going on. I especially like at the end of the recit when he sings, "In a moment; In the twinkling of an eye." Except his eyes don't twinkle. They are always on. Is this what it means for the dead to be raised incorruptible? I'm not sure I want that. I enjoy blinking.