For hundreds if not thousands of local lovers of sacred choral music, the Christmas season wouldn’t be complete without their hearing at least one performance of George Frideric Handel’s beloved oratorio, “Messiah.” Fortunately for everyone concerned, Greater Philadelphia’s numerous choral ensembles provide a cornucopia of renditions of “Messiah” to enjoy each and every holiday season.

Handel composed “Messiah” in 1741 to a libretto by Charles Jennens taken from passages in the King James English translation of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible plus selections from the Anglican Psalter. Handel himself led its premiere in April 1742 as part of the celebration of Easter. In fact, for all of Handel’s lifetime, “Messiah” was performed as a culmination of the penitential season of Lent. It wasn’t until the following century that “Messiah” became a mainstay of the Advent and Christmas seasons.

Over the centuries, performances of “Messiah” have grown to the gargantuan size of late romantic music and then, nowadays, back to the chamber ensemble approach of Handel’s own baroque era and that of the period instrumentalists of our day.

When Eugene Ormandy, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir began performing “Messiah” at Christmastime in the 1950s and 1960s, theirs was the epitome of the “High Victorian” approach to the score – a huge choir, a huge orchestra, and operatic vocal soloists. Of course, it’s easy nowadays to sneer at such an interpretation, but one should remember that their album, “Highlights from ‘Messiah’,” sold more than 100,000 copies and earned them a “Gold Record” from Columbia Masterworks.

These days, the Orchestra takes a middle-of-the-road approach: a full choir and instrumental ensemble but nonetheless fully aware of baroque performance practices. This season, music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin will lead the Orchestra and the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir in performances of “Messiah” Saturday, Dec. 13, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 14, at 2 p.m. in the Kimmel Center’s Marian Anderson Hall.

For a more “baroque period” approach to “Messiah,” local music lovers can hear Tempesta di Mare, Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra, perform the score Thursday, Dec. 18, at 7 p.m., in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, or Sunday, Dec. 21, at 4 p.m., in the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia.

Dan Spratlan, the music director of the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, will conduct a performance of Part One of “Messiah” Friday, Dec. 12, at 7:30 p.m., with a reception to follow.

Jasper Chamber Concerts

Not all concerts during Advent feature renditions of “Messiah.” Jasper Chamber Concerts will present a program of works by George Walker (“Lyric”), Patrick Castillo “Libera me”), Haydn and Debussy Thursday, Dec. 11, at 7:30 p.m., in the Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting.

Triumphant Yannick

I suspect that during all the years since Yannick Nezet-Seguin was named music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2010, I’ve been waiting – sometimes patiently, sometimes not – for him to conduct a serious, major orchestral work that matches the promise of his obviously fantastic musical talents. Thank God for that patience because it paid off Sunday afternoon, Nov. 30, when he led Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Opus 82, in the Kimmel Center’s Marian Anderson Hall before a packed matinee audience.

Sibelius’ music, in general, and his symphonies, in particular, were stalwarts of the repertoire of Nezet-Seguin’s legendary predecessor, Eugene Ormandy. When Ormandy and the “Fabulous Philadelphians” recorded the Fifth Symphony in 1954 for Columbia Masterworks, it immediately became a classic against which all other performances were compared. Ormandy’s strings glistened in the cold Finnish winter air, the woodwinds piped with mellow sweetness, and the brass choir soared like trumpeter swans.

In all the years since I heard not just that recording, but “live” performances, as well, I’ve never encountered the like. That is until Sunday, Nov. 30, with Nezet-Seguin on the podium and the Philadelphians amassed in front of him, responding to his every gesture with rhythmic alacrity, textural clarity, and the tonal splendor which has made the Philadelphia Orchestra the most gorgeous-sounding symphony in the world.

Nezet-Seguin caught the edgy thematic development of the first movement, the poignant melancholy of the second, and the unbounded power of the third. Never in my recent memory have the strings shimmered so, nor the woodwinds sang with such purity of tone, nor the brass commanded the skies above. It was Sibelius, the Philadelphians and Nezet-Seguin at their very best, and none could have been better.

The program’s first half was a pleasant surprise. Terence Blanchard’s Orchestral Suite from “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” is a stunning piece of tone-painting, and violinist Maria Duenas gave a lilting reading in Edouard Lalo’s “Symphonie espagnole.”

You can contact NOTEWORTHY at Michael-caruso@comcast.net.