“Messiah (HWV 56) is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel based on a libretto by Charles Jennens. Composed in the summer of 1741 and premiered in Dublin on the 13 April 1742, Messiah is Handel’s most famous creation and is among the most popular works in Western choral literature. It includes the very well-known ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. … It was premiered during the following season, in the spring of 1742, as part of a series of charity concerts in Neal’s Music Hall on Fishamble Street near Dublin’s Temple Bar district. … There is a story told (perhaps apocryphally) that Handel’s assistant walked in to Handel’s room after shouting to him for several minutes with no response. The assistant reportedly found Handel in tears, and when asked what was wrong, Handel held up the score to this movement and said, ‘I thought I saw the face of God’.”
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Will any human being ever write a score and say “I thought I saw the face of Darwin?”
Merry Christmas – God Bless You and Yours
Maybe The Monkees?
Peter,
As I muse at times on the nature of God, I can imagine Him looking down and thinking,”At least Darwin understood a part of My engineering specification.”
World’s silliest argument. God created evolution. Whatever energy set off evolution, it has to have a Name, right?
great music pick, wretchard –pitch perfect, as it were –thanks! Merry Christmas to everybody!
Question: how many works composed today will still be performed 266 years from now?
Answer: probably none because composers now are mainly interested in esoteric works that will wow the in-group rather than pleasing a broad audience. Exception might be certain movie scores which I regard as the successor to classical music.
Exception might be certain movie scores which I regard as the successor to classical music
excellent thought –likely true. “Last of the Mohicans” (the mid 90′s Mann production) will be great listening forever –a quick thought because i was whistling the Virginia Reel-ish melody all day yesterday –interspersed with the usual Christmas head music, “The Impossible Dream” from “Man of La Mancha” a story of the story of Don Quixote –whose author Cervantes fought under Christian banners at Lepanto. That was, like, primary observation of Christmas if ever there was one. but i think the song pops into my head around Christmas because, well, you know. It’s such a wildly demanding, hallucinatory, mind-blowing Story. As is the meaning of the word “faith” –no wonder Handel sprung a tear. So did I just now, listing to the music through a pair of really good headphones. One can’t not be moved. Very mysterious stuff, and right to hand –always.
Wretchard,
Thank you so much for posting this excellent story.
Here’s a great Youtube video of the Gloucester Cathedral Choir singing “In the Bleak Midwinter.” Beautiful, just beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRobryliBLQ
Programmer: As I muse at times on the nature of God, I can imagine Him looking down and thinking,”At least Darwin understood a part of My engineering specification.”
Evolution is how God pushes out patches and upgrades. It’s also a pretty good substitute for Outlook Express, if you’re not inclined to pay the Mickeysoft Tax.
Exception might be certain movie scores which I regard as the successor to classical music
Has anyone listened to Howard Shore’s compositions for the “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy?
X3NA says:
Evolution is how God pushes out patches and upgrades.
programmer responds: Spot on!!
X3NA then says:
It’s also a pretty good substitute for Outlook Express, if you’re not inclined to pay the Mickeysoft Tax.
programmer ruefully admits:
It’s too late for me. I drank the kool-aid and asked for second helpings.
Panday, Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings music is most excellent! I especially love “Into the West,” sung by Annie Lennox. It was written with a young man in mind, a teenaged film maker who was befriended by Peter Jackson. The young man suffered from terminal cancer, and passed away just as the Lord of the Rings trilogy was being finished. This song is a tribute to him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24fGmWG6kpg
I sang Agnus Dei in choir this past Sunday. I’ve been barking at the choir director to get the techs to post online the choir’s work. So far, nothing. Here’s Michael W. Smith’s version of same.
Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty .. [Agnus Dei]
9 Elby
I’d add the concluding chorale from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw9MwTUTdz4
Text: Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen
An eurer Feinde Schar,
Denn Christus hat zerbrochen,
Was euch zuwider war.
Tod, Teufel, Sünd und Hölle
Sind ganz und gar geschwächt;
Bei Gott hat seine Stelle
Das menschliche Geschlecht.
{English translation follows)
Now are ye well avengéd
Upon your hostile host,
For Christ hath fully broken
All that which you opposed.
Death, devil, hell and error
To nothing are reduced;
With God hath now its shelter
The mortal race of man.
If you listen carefully, you can hear that Bach is using the chorale tune of “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” thus setting Christmas within the larger story of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Thanks, Wretchard, for posting the Handel– that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a video of a score that allows the watcher/listener to sing along. Wonderful!
@ 9. X3NA
Real men use kmail. I mean… c’mon… gnome?
I’ve this antipathy towards anything trollish.
Did you know that KDE in Czech means WHERE?
Anywhere!
W: Beautiful post. Tears in my eyes too! F
I shall pay respect to Islam when its bazillion followers get it together to create something half as perfect, joyous, and ebullient as this praise to a creator. “Rich cultural heritage” of Muslims, indeed.
I’ve always wanted to go to one of those public offerings of the Hallelujah chorus and sing along with the choir – some place in the distinctly middle registers. Some day I really do need to make that happen.
twobyfour brags: Real men use kmail.
programmer sighs: I’ll bet you use vi for programming, right?
“…Handel held up the score to this movement and said, “I thought I saw the face of God”.
Maybe he had. I’m not religious myself, but I’ve often thought the experience in the concert hall is the closest we come to being in a secular cathedral.
Handel saw it. I cannot believe that anybody can listen to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and still think that the universe consists only of atoms and molecules.
or the first movement of the 6th, PB –
Do it yourself Messiahs are part of what makes our civilization a winner.
We have fun on our side, “and we like sheep.”
Here is another monument of our culture — the Benedictus section of the Missa Solemnis by Beethoven. This link is to a performance by Leonard Bernstein: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5cOfF9ZDAM.
Link to Toscanini’s recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0aYsYp8qqc&feature=related. It was recorded December 28, 1940 when the Maestro was still a lot more flexible in his tempos.
Here is a 1955 version conducted by Karl Bohm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8c7CNvsTrY
Beethoven wrote on the manuscript, “From the heart, may it go to the heart.” A fitting addition, I think, to the sublime suggestions today.
@ 18. programmer
vi? No. I do retain some level of sanity–kate or jedit, depending on code produced/modified. Used TextPad when I was still beholden to Gates, 7 years тому назад.
Programmer #3.
What a delightful comment! Thanks
Best wishes,
Jm
Thanks for another great year of thoughtful camaraderie here at the Belmont Club.
The Handel story brought tears to my eyes, too. If only Elvis were singing it…
Merry Christmas to all!
Elby,
The choir was beautiful. My God, my God. Just Beautiful.
Merry Christmas to all, and best wishes for 2009.
Thanks for posting.
Grew up listening to classical music. There is not enough of it on radio waves nowadays.
Well, sometimes I too opt for easy on the eye substitute. The tall singer must have a lung capacity of two men, 6.0 liter V2 model, as it were…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA9DmSfufSQ
The whole of the Messiah by Handel encompasses the prelude to the birth of Jesus, the Passion (crucifixion) and the Resurrection.
The Hallelujah Chorus is properly sung near the end, after the Resurrection, yet it has become part of the more well known parts surrounding the birth of Jesus, sung at Christmas.
I learned those parts as a teenager singing in a choir, and it never leaves you. I still know it now.
“For unto us a child is born
For unto us a son is given
And the government shall be upon his shoulders
And his name shall be called Wonderful,Counselor
The mighty God, the Everlasting Father
The Prince of Peace”
Keep the faith. Have a very Merry Christmas.
And thank you, Mr. Fernandez, for the Belmont Club.
Wonderful, only better when heard in a big Gothic or Norman church, or maybe in the Albert hall. (Last time I heard it live.)
Tabernacles do a pretty good job, too.
buddy larsen #4 – I have another argument along the same lines. The story of Genesis has God making everything from scratch, by hand, and continuing to intervene on even the submicroscopic level of individual humans for ever more after his Creation.
This seems to me to inelegant, sloppy and a kludge – not at all the sort of work expected of an omnipotent and omniscient God. How much more elegant to take a particular set of equations and relations between them – and breathe the fire of Creation into them, knowing that somewhere among the depths of space, on a small globe made as an afterthought from the funeral ashes of a star, will arise life and intelligence. Maybe in many such places.
This does not mean that even God knew in advance where this would be or what form it would take; randomness is built into the process at a fundamental level. But that doesn’t really matter either; “made in the image of God” does not mean that God has a shape at all, much less that He is in the shape of Man.
Maybe there is other life and intelligence out there, and maybe there isn’t. If there is then it doesn’t really matter what we do. But if there is not – then perhaps our purpose was ordained fifteen billion years ago at the very moment of the Beginning; that purpose being to bring life and mind to the Cosmos. Perhaps we ought to act on that thought, and get on with it.
I am distinctly agnostic, or perhaps Deist. But looking into the night sky on a clear night makes it very difficult to believe that there is nothing there at all.
I’m writing this at 1:30 AM where I am. Christmas Day is already over for me. But anyway – peace and goodwill to all; all those of peace that is. May the men of violence and hate also get what they deserve.
Panday,
Shore’s LoTR score is brilliant. I never tire of it.
Doc
To each his own. I basically can’t stand Handel. It’s loud, irritating, repetitive. But I’m glad you folks like it.
Here’s More Maria McCool for those that might want to wash the bad sounds away. I’d be happy to die in her arms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPqRo8b2yzA&NR=1
Here’s Maria, she seemed to go missing there.
@ 35. Bobal
I like this one better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi0M7PLJZKw
Anyway… back to Christmas and Jennifer Cella (the tall one TSO singer from above)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MMCwUf4HJA
Islam, per the Qur’an, is generally not disposed favorably towards music. Except for the wailing of the muezzezin from a minaret.
None of the beautiful music sung in cathedrals from the Middle Ages onward, nor the beautiful Gregorian Chant of the period after Late Antiquity, or the music from Aquitaine and Ireland, on up through the Baroque Period would ever be possible in the Muslim world.
Just another reason to suspect that Allah is Satan.
I now listen to rock music much less than I used to. It isn’t that I dislike it – just that I’ve never strayed far from the introductions to music I got in Catholic grammar school: music of the baroque and classical periods. I find that it does more for my mind and heart than anything else. I like some of the music from the Medieval period as well. Most of the time I have one of two classical music stations on. When they aren’t coming in well, I just use my computer to get the webcast of their stations.
32. Fletcher Christian:
The story of Genesis has God making everything from scratch, by hand, and continuing to intervene on even the submicroscopic level of individual humans for ever more after his Creation.
This seems to me to inelegant, sloppy and a kludge – not at all the sort of work expected of an omnipotent and omniscient God. How much more elegant to take a particular set of equations and relations between them – and breathe the fire of Creation into them, knowing that somewhere among the depths of space, on a small globe made as an afterthought from the funeral ashes of a star, will arise life and intelligence. Maybe in many such places.
……….
This is pretty much 18th century deism as you mentioned. The clockwork universe. The one that God wound up and set in motion. After that He was pretty much hands off. This carried the day into the 19th century and was fully compatible with the Arian Heresy that took over Christendom and remains today in the liberal denominations. 19th century Evangelical theologins complained that the problem with deism was that it made Christianity not too distinct from Islam which also held to an impersonal distant Allah.
A 20th century Rock And Roller from the Doors complained that the problem with the clock work universe was that You Cannot Petition The Lord With Prayer
Batman: With you on the Missa Solemnis. It is puzzling that this work is not more well known.
This is one of the most moving expressions of faith in the literature, and is one of the greatest works of sacred music ever written. It is certainly Beethoven’s greatest work.
This work is on a par with the Bach Great Mass in B minor and the great masses of Palestrina. It is almost overwhelming.
Personally, I like the Kyrie the best).
If there is anything that expresses the finest of the West, it is our muscial tradition and most particularly the scared music of that tradition. Nothing else like it in history of the world.
No contest.
imho everyone should sing messiah in choir before they die. don’t worry about whether you can sing your part or whether you can read music. there are now practice /cd’s/mp3′s on the market. you can download your part from the net and practice it while you’re working on your computer or driving in your car.
Fred@38,
From GOD came satan as well as all the other angels of heaven.
For without the great destroyer there would be no struggle and our existence would be petrified for all time. A hell, in and of itself.
We as a race need satan. As much as the forest needs fire. So that our glorious Heros may rise and renew our growth as a race. So that the Glory of our FATHER is enriched.
As we are but his children and we should strive to make him proud of us and our deeds.
Jim
“I shall pay respect to Islam when its bazillion followers get it together to create something half as perfect, joyous, and ebullient as this praise to a creator.”
It is my understanding that the Holy Qu’ran takes the form of an oral recitation, and that the skilled recitation of same in the Arabic language has the effect of which you speak on someone who is familiar to those verses through study. Of course the teaching is that this work was not created by any one of those billions of Muslims, either now or in an earler age, but was the result of a direct revelation to the Prophet.
I am not arguing for cultural relativism, only for cultural context. Would “Messiah” have any meaning to a person without the cultural context, that is sitting through Sunday School class and having certain concepts pounded into your head by a very dull teacher, and then suddenly making the connection to what you have learned with those ideas set to Handel’s music?
Mencken, a noted and notorius atheist and critic of Christendom — perhaps a recent parallel among people liked on the Right is Christopher Hitchens’ efforts on that front — Mencken likened religion to poetry and communicating best as poetry.
Mencken expressed a grudging respect for the Catholic expression of the Christian religion. He spoke of a Catholic Bishop at high Mass, clothed in fine vestments, shrouded in a miasma of incense, prayers spoken in a dead language (Latin), as being on the level of poetry, that is, communicating in some mysterious and intuitive way not readily parsed. Mencken described that same Bishop giving a sermon against Darwin (this is back in the day, the Church has made its peace with Darwin) and how this once glorious cleric is now the “argumentative and sweating son of a saloon keeper.”
Poetry and many of the other arts are often described as an “acquired taste” — that is, one needs some minimum exposure to the cultural context to appreciate what some regard as the inherent beauty.
Yes, Islam is effective as poetry, in the best sense of how Mencken argued that religion needs to communicate at the level of poetry, among the people who understand enough Arabic and other aspects to appreciate it.
Fletcher Christian,
It is those without peace for whom we must pray the hardest.
I cannot believe that anybody can listen to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and still think that the universe consists only of atoms and molecules.
I consider the Ninth Symphony (there can be only one) to be God speaking. I own 10+/- different renditions in vinyl and CD; He is there in each. Early Herbie or Gunter Wand are my favs. To think that it was written by a man who never heard it physically….
tanarg – one does not have to hate a rabid wolf (one can even feel sorry for it) to do what is necessary when one encounters such, given that one has the means.
The Empress and I were on our way to Christmas Mass and on XM Holiday Pops they played a recording of Unto Us a Child is Born. I was singing along with the piece, that is probably my favorite of the Xmas portions of the performance.
Yes, the Hallelujah chorus is definitely rejoicing in Christ’s triumphal resurrection and not his birth. My recollection of the work’s history is The Messiah used to be featured around Easter and not Xmas, I am trying to break myself of this and listen to the work around Easter.
In a warm and tropical place I recall seeing a monument inscribed with:
REST MY SONS, YOUR DUTY DONE…FOR FREEDOM’S LIGHT HAS COME –
SLEEP IN THE SILENT DEPTHS OF THE SEA, OR IN YOUR BED OF HALLOWED SOD -
UNTIL YOU HEAR AT DAWN THE LOW, CLEAR REVEILLE OF GOD.
In my mind I started to hear:
The trumpet shall sound
and the dead shall be raised,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed.
I agree, Handel’s Messiah is one of those works that can be described as a tower of human achievement. I would put Rachmaninoff’s 3rd piano concerto up there, and I agree Beethoven’s Ninth is on the list.