This week we headed downtown to attend a noon-time Messiah sing at a cathedral. Toting our own musical scores like the classical geeks we are, we enter through the back door and follow the signs to the alto section. My husband sings bass, I sing soprano or alto and our daughter just sings. So we compromise.

As the orchestra warms up, we drink in the beauty of the place - the sculptures, the dark,gleaming oak, rich brick and cool stone. Stories from the gospels shine through vibrant stained glass windows - the annunciation,the worshipping shepherds, the gift-bearing magi.

The gothic architecture, with it’s towering pointed arches and cavernous ceilings, seem more fitting to contain the greatness and glory of God than the school auditoriums we have worshipped in over the years. But I’ve experienced the glorious presence of God in Chinese underground churches and grass structures without walls in the Mikea Forest of Madagascar, so I do know that architecture has nothing to do with presence. But still, it moves my soul.

Beauty in form.

The orchestra begins, a tenor stands to sing, and I start to cry.

Beauty in sound.

In these days of the musical style less-is-more, when Sufjan Stevens and his friends are la-la-laing their way through “It’s Christmas! Let’s Be Glad” - and grandma gets run over by a reindeer on every radio station in town (except NPR, God bless them) - such a magnificent work as Messiah seems overkill. (And please don’t stone me. I like Sufjan Stevens. I listen to Sufjan Stevens…once in awhile.)

But when I listen to Messiah, my gaze and my soul rises to God. And I suppose that’s the whole point.

The soloists take their turns singing scripture, word for word. As a matter of fact, the entire libretto (the text) is from the Bible - OT prophesies, and nativity accounts,stories of the death and resurrection of the Christ.

Beauty in Word.

As the contralto soloist sings - “He is like a refiner’s fire…” my mind wanders to the story behind the music….

In 1742, when George Frideric Handel was commissioned to write an oratorio on the life of Jesus, illiteracy was high and copies of the Bible were rare and obscenely expensive. The stained glass windows and carved doors and sculptures of the day had a purpose beyond beauty, as they told the Bible stories in a language that could be understood. Oratorios, such as Messiah, did the same through music.

And this is, no doubt, why Handle wanted to take on the project. But he had other reasons as well. For a start, he was broke - as the vast majority of classical musicians and artists have been through the ages. Handel was a brilliant composer, but his share of failures had left him deeply in debt and, some say, on his way to debtor’s prison. With his health also failing him. I can only imagine that his heart and courage may have been failing him as well.

Beauty in brokenness.

The story of how Messiah was written is the stuff of legend and probably some myth. But we do know that Handel wrote the entire score in 24 days. 20 big choral masterpieces, over 30 instrumental and solo pieces - 260 pages of manuscript in 24 days.

In his book, Spiritual Lives of Great Composers, Patrick Cavanaugh sets the scene:

“In a small London house on Brook Street, a servant sighs with resignation as he arranges a tray full of food. he assumes will not be eaten. For more than a week, he has faithfully continued to wait on his employer, an eccentric composer, who spends hour after hour isolated in his own room. Morning, noon, and evening the servant delivers appealing meals to the composer and returns later to find the bowls and platters largely untouched. Once again, he steels himself to go through the same routine, muttering under his breath about how oddly temperamental musicians can be. As he swings open the door to the composer’s room, the servant stops in his tracks.

The startled composer, tears streaming down his face, turns to his servant and cries out, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself.” George Frederic Handel had just finished writing a movement that would take its place in history as the Hallelujah Chorus.”

Beauty revealed.

The bass sings “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”

I remember that the first performance of “Messiah” in Dublin, Ireland was a benefit concert - the proceeds being used for orphans, a charity hospital and to free 142 men from debtor’s prison. After this it became a tradition to raise money for London orphanages and support the poor in a variety of ways through Messiah performances.

Beauty in action.

I’m brought back to the moment. It’s our turn to sing.

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Might God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Beauty.

*Excerpt - Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers by Patrick Kavanaugh (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1996 p. 27).
*Photos:
Stained Glass Window by Bev Lloyd-Roberts, Great Britain
St. Paul by Nicolas Demars, France
Music notes 3 by Am y, Singapore
Susan’s Snow Angel by Debbie Schiel, Australia
Modern Stained Glass by Stephen J. Sullivan, USA

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