|
Posted on 04/08/2007 10:10:10 AM PDT by HoosierHawk
|
Some Easter Sunday Classical Music
Hi.
Handel’s Messiah is not just for Christmas. It makes a great daily meditation taken in parts.
Which recording is this?
Absolutely. Enjoy.
Is there a public domain version to download?
the librettist Charles Jennens was truly inspired in the scriptural selections, from prophecy to birth to earthly ministry to crucifixion to resurrection to ascension to the current work of evangelists in the Church age to coming again.
My apology. I should have noted it.
Thanks Hawk
Rene Jacobs conducting the Cambridge Choir of Clare College and Freiburger Barockorchester.
So far, this is an excellent interpretation.
We memorized all of the songs for Christmas many years ago. I found them very easy to memorize but I usually do not have that much trouble doing that. I love the songs.
the usual take on Jennens is that he was a non-elector, some arcane political sliver having to do with the legitimacy of the royal British line. The fact that someone , like this NYTer, can fail to mention that fact while discussing the temporal context, indicates a more nefarious agenda (by the NYT). I’ve always thought it of extreme irony that the most famous anecdote, George II standing during the performance, would have been a comeuppance to Jennens. I am hopeful he was a humble enough man to see God’s over-ruling in the affairs of men, just as the timelessness and spiritual power of the work puts this piffling commentary in the garbage can where it belongs.
Dear HoosierHawk,
Thanks for the ping!
A very special Easter Classical Music Ping List ping!!
Happy Easter!!
sitetest
The LaSalle Bank in Chicago sponsors a Do-It-Yourself Messiah every Advent. Four top professional soloists and a guest conductor, 80 piece orchestra plus organist and harpsichordist, all for two nights in the Civic Opera Center in Chicago. The bank pays the whole bill and gives the tickets away (about 3500 each night) to whoever wants to show up. The audience brings scores and sings their hearts out. It really makes Christmas for me.
Lutheran ping.
Simply outstanding Hawk! Thank you ever so much & a blessed Easter to you & yours!
Love Messiah. It also lines up quite well with the Mass readings of the Mary Christ Mass.
But you are right for pointing out that it is also an excellent piece for Easter as well.
Thank you for this post.
Thank you, HH. I’m sure there are troops who will enjoy this. I wrote to a LT. stationed in Iraq for a year and a half and he requested classical music which I sent in every package.
“And He shall reign Forever and Ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah”
Beginning on August 22, 1741, he spent seven days on the first part, nine days on the second, and six days on the third part. He then spent an additional two days finishing the instrumentation.
An exceptional task.
I'm glad you enjoy it.
Handel’s first performance of Messiah was around the Easter season, not Christmas. Though he was living and working in London, Handel first publicly performed Messiah in Dublin, Ireland — not in a sacred edifice like in a church but in a music hall on Fishamble Street. He nearly didn’t have enough musicians to pull it off (how many choral directors today face the same problem?). The dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin - the famed author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift - at first refused to allow his choristers to perform music set to sacred text in a secular setting of a public music hall. Lucky for Handel - and for us today - he relented.
....The reviews of Messiah’s debut were outstanding. One member of the audience, so moved by singer Susannah Cibber’s solo “He was Despised”, arose from his seat and proclaimed “Woman, for this thy sins be forgiven thee!”. These comments drew a gasp from many in attendance because the rumors of Ms. Cibber’s amorous affairs were abundant.
“Words are wanting to express the exquisite delight it afforded,” wrote a newspaper review of the performance. “The sublime, the grand, and the tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestic and moving words, conspired to transport and charm the ravished heart and ear.” Handel donated the proceeds from the event to three prominent Dublin charities, helping to make a name for Messiah.
...Two days before Palm Sunday in 1759, Handel conducted his final performance of Messiah. He collapsed after the performance and had to be carried home. As he lay dying he expressed the wish to pass on Good Friday, as Jesus did. “I do this in hope of rejoining the good God, my sweet Lord and Savior, on the day of his resurrection. On Good Friday, 17 years after the debut of Messiah in Dublin, Handel died.
As with most creative geniuses, Handel’s greatest praise came long after his time.
Ludwig von Beethoven once said: “He was the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel before his tomb.” Franz Joseph Haydn, after hearing Handel’s Messiah for the first time, admitted: “He was the master of us all”.
http://mymerrychristmas.com/2005/messiah.shtml
Thank you HoosierHawk!!
Thanks for adding the history of Messiah.
Glad you all enjoy.
Thanks for the history lesson.
BUMP
Wonderful!!!!!
King of King & Lord of Lords!
Memorizing The Messiah is quite an achievement-and not just for the length. There are passages that will tie even good choirs up in knots. You know that you are in trouble when you see separate staffs for soprano, alto, tenor and bass, and each section is singing something completely different from the other three.
So true. And the tenor part is written on the treble clef, one octave higher than it is sung.
I am in our church choir and we have about 65 voices. We sang the Hallelujah Chorus today at the end of our morning services. Always thrilling, IMO.
Beatiful.
I love The Messiah.
God bless you HoosierHawk.
sp=beautiful
THANK YOU for the ping Brad’s Gramma.
I have sung in choirs for both the Easter and Christmas versions of the Messiah. While you almost need to memorize many parts of the songs to be able to sing them we still held the music. The the choir director believed in following musical traditions and holding the music is one of them. He also so had several people sitting the front of the church ready to stand at the start of the Hallelujah Chorus.
thank you for the PING!
I went to one at Royal ALbert Hall in London with Sir Richard Hickoks directing. Church choirs from all over England had come to participate, over 5000 of them. It was astonishingly beautiful. I had not become a church singer as of that time and so was lacking in respect for the tremendous talent and dedication of the people who serve the Lord, through music, in his Temple every week. I no longer lack that respect.
Happy Easter...gorgeous online recording of “Messiah” ping.
thanks for the link. Our choir sang “ Worthy Is The Lamb That Was Slain”... this morning. I wanted to cry with JOY!
Polly
Right now I’m hearing ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ and because of the subject matter (He died for our sins) I can’t say I’m enjoying it...but the Gift of salvation it speaks of is Unspeakable, Wonderful.
Amen.
Hapy Easter!
HE is RISEN INDEED!!!!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Thanks Coleus...same to you and yours.
“Worthy is the Lamb”, with its Great Amen, is one of my all time favorite pieces of choral music! It is a BEAR to sing, I can tell you, but glorious, nonetheless.
Anyone who has ever sung “The Messiah” knows it wasn’t written for Christmas. It is, in musical representation, the prophecy of the birth of Jesus, and the story of His Passion, Death and Resurrection using the Scriptures. After having learned it in college, I can’t hear those readings at Mass anymore without hearing the arias and choruses.
We do something pretty cool at our church. HC is the last thing in the service, and we invite anyone from the congregation up to join the choir (we also have an orch of about 10 or so and timpanni, which I play). Most churches have extra copies of the music to hand out to the guests. Some of our regular members come up, but there are so many strangers on Easter at most churches that there are many new faces each year. What has developed over the years is folks with no regular church come to ours because they know they will get to sing it. Very few have ever become regular members, but so what. Mention it to your choir director for next year. You’ll really enjoy it.
I read, years ago, how that custom began. The story goes that when "The Messiah" was first performed for the King of England, he was so moved by the beauty and majesty of the "Hallelujah" chorus, that it brought him to his feet. And of course, when the King rose, so did everyone else.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
