| Product: |
Handel: Messiah |
| Date: |
11/07/02 (68 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Makes me happy, Fantastic tunes, Hummable
Disadvantages: Quite long, Can be a bit repetitive
Singing makes me happy. It also makes me yawn - a side effect of all that oxygen, I suspect. But singing the Messiah makes me more than happy - it gets me high! I come home from rehearsals bubbling (and believe me, 'bubbling' is *not* my natural state at 10.00 on a Monday evening after a long day at work) and I come home from concerts ecstatic. That's why Jill Murphy's request has prompted me to write in this unfamiliar category - I can't think of anything else that makes me feel as good. Well, anything else I can write about on dooyoo...;-)
Handel is best known for the Messiah. In fact, its so popular that is has been somewhat over-exposed. But my experience of singing in an amateur choir is that the Messiah pulls in about triple the audience we would usually get for a choral work (say, Brahm's requiem - also a lovely piece), so people can't be *that* bored of it.
Most people think of the Messiah as a huge choral piece - possibly a big male voice choir with boy sopranos singing the high parts. It is often done this way, but it doesn't have to be. I have an excellent CD from Naxos (the cheapest I could find - I was a student at the time) with only two people singing each part. And its fantastic. Of course, your average amateur choir member couldn't pull this off - its not a particularly difficult sing (certainly not second time around) but it does require a fair amount voice flexibility (semi-quavers!) and an ability to both remember and pitch the subtle differences between repeated sections.
The Messiah is big in another way - its long! In fact, its so long that your feet tend to suffer through having to stand so much, and the solo bits are very welcome because you get to sit down. The reason its so long is twofold - it tells the *whole* story of the life of Jesus and Handel has a bit of a tendency to go round in circles. One line can be quite happily made to do several times - quite a lo
t of the solo bits are just a phrase or two but go on for a good five minutes. If you don't know the music it can be quite frustrating in a when-are-you-going-to-get-on-with-the-story sort of way, but as long as you know what to expect its fine.
The best bit about the Messiah, to my mind, is the tunes. From the famous Hallelujah chorus to the Christmas favourite 'Unto us is born a son' to some of the less well known but still rousing bits (personally, I particularly like the high notes which symbolise the 'valleys being exalted' and the low notes which follow about 'the mountains being made low') there really isn't a bad tune in it. As they say about good musicals, you come out humming. ;-)
"Jill Murphy asked me to write about one of my favorite things to help her celebrate her fourth anniversary of cancer-free living and to remind ourselves of all the nice things in the world. It takes more muscles to make a frown than a smile you know. If you'd like to join in, whether you've only just joined dooyoo, or you've been here ages, you're more than welcome. Just write about one of YOUR favorite things, make your title "A Favorite Thing: [your choice]" and include this paragraph at the foot of your opinion. And post before Friday, 9th August."
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