Messiah by Tammy Glaser

My Sunday school class has been studying the text and story behind hymns. Every week, we pick a hymn and dig up something to share the following Sunday. In December, we turned our attention to Christmas carols. Since I cannot go through advent without airing Handel’s Messiah, I suggested that sacred oratorio. Our teacher volunteered me to guide the class since I sounded so enthusiastic.

I showed up the following week with copies of the text of all three parts for everyone to study. Before sharing the story behind the music, I asked, “How many of you have ever heard Handel’s Messiah?” Only one hand went up while everyone else shifted in their seats. My stomach dropped and silently wondered how the next half hour would go. First, I explained the background.

Handel’s Messiah was born out of distressing circumstances. Charles Jennens, a wealthy English gentlemen, grieved the death of his brother Robert. The young student became deeply depressed after lengthy contact with deists. Deists believe that god is an impersonal creator of the universe who walked away from his entire creation. Diests view Jesus as a gifted teacher who lived a good life and died a pointless death. Robert doubted everything he had ever believed and eventually committed suicide.

Charles had already put together two “Scripture collections” for oratorios by Handel: Saul and Israel in Egypt. Driven by his brother’s death, he put together a new collection on the “subject which excels every other subject”: the redemptive work of Jesus. He had hoped that inspirational music focused on the prophecies of the Messiah and their fulfillment would touch the mind and soul of the doubtful. In the summer of 1741, he put together verses from Psalm, Isaiah, Lamentations, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Luke, John, Romans, I Corinthians, Hebrews, and Revelation.

The librettist visited his friend Georg Frideric Handel, who was deeply distressed. Jennens urged the composer to set the text to music in time for Easter. Handel reluctantly agreed but figured it would take a year.

The German composer had good reason for hesitating. After leaving his homeland, he focused on Italian opera in England, just as its popularity waned. He shifted to sacred oratorio, a Biblical story set to music without costumes, scenery, and acting. Hearing “common mummers” sing a sacred text in the theater outraged some of the church. The bishop of London forbid the performance of Esther, but Handel ignored him and even royalty attended. In 1737, he faced bankruptcy and suffered a mild stroke. When Israel in Egypt debuted in 1739, some Christians stole the advertisements and disrupted performances. When confronted with concerns of the Puritans, Handel replied, “I have read my Bible very well and will choose for myself.” The controversy ruined him financially and this former royal composer faced debtor’s prison. In 1741, he scheduled a “farewell appearance” in London.

Not long after Jennens’ visit, Dublin charities gave Handel an offer he could not refuse. They asked him to compose for a benefit performance to raise money that would free men from debtor’s prison, and a generous commission would keep him from prison. Handel began work on August 22, 1741 in his little house on Brook Street in London. He barely ate and rarely left his room for three weeks. A friend stopped to visit Handel during this time and saw him sob with intense emotion. Handel recalled of finishing the Hallelujah chorus, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself.” He later quoted Paul, “Whether I was in the body or out of my body when I wrote it I know not.” It took six days to compose Part One, nine for Part Two, and another six for Part Three. He wrapped up the orchestration and, in twenty-four days, had composed 260 pages of music.

Controversy did not stop the show. Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels and dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, fumed but eventually allowed his musicians to play at the premiere on April 13, 1742. Demand for tickets was so high that the music hall told men and women to leave their swords and hoops at home to free up 100 more spots. A crowd of 700 attended and raised 400 pounds that released 142 men from prison. Messiah turned around Handel’s career and has been in continuous performance ever since.

Before his death, Handel conducted thirty Messiah performances, only during Lent. John Wesley sat in one audience and remarked, “I doubt if that congregation was ever so serious at a sermon as they were during this performance,” he remarked. Another writer concluded, Messiah “has probably done more to convince thousands of mankind that there is a God about us than all the theological works ever written.” Handel responded to accolades on the excellent entertainment with, “My Lord, I should be sorry if I only entertain them. I wish to make them better.”

The story of the men behind Messiah warmed my classmates to a style of music unfamiliar to them. They took turns reading the text of Part One and discussing its meaning. Before each piece, I explained to them who sang it and how it made me feel as both singer and listener. Half-apologizing, I concluded that this three-hour long composition would probably sound like opera to them. Even if they never listened to it, studying the text would make their advent and lent more meaningful.

Quietly,  a person I considered least likely to show an interest asked, “Is it recorded somewhere?” Relieved, I gladly shared that there are so many recordings that is hard to pick which one. He followed up with, “Which one would be closest to the original?” I had no answer but promised to share a link at our church’s Facebook page. Later, another classmate told me that her husband, who has never listened to opera in his life, was completely intrigued by learning a piece of history completely unfamiliar to him. She finished, “We’re looking for that 1984 version by Robert Shaw that you recommended.”

“That calm delight

Which, if I err not, surely must belong

To those first-born affinities that fit

Our new existence to existing things,

And, in our dawn of being, constitute

The bond of union between life and joy.”

~ William Wordsworth

Resources

http://gfhandel.org/messiah.htm

http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/12/10/for-the-mouth-of-the-lord-hath-spoken-it/

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/musiciansartistsandwriters/handel.html

© 2011 by Tammy Glaser  All rights reserved.

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I Am At My Most Contemplative at This Time of Year by Sandy Rusby Bell

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.” Anna Quindlen

This season always finds me contemplative. The long, dark evenings at the end of the year invite reflection. I find myself looking back even more than usual this year though. I will soon be graduating my oldest daughter. It seems only yesterday that my four year old fireball was telling me that we could not be done lessons until she saw the school bus drive by our home. But this fall we’ve been visiting universities. My part in educating her is almost done. I’ve learned so much on this journey we’ve shared and there are many things I would do differently if I could do it all over again. But there is one thing I would do exactly the same. I would still read to her every single day of her life.

We have built a life around books. I started collecting children’s stories before my girl was even born. She’s received a book or two, and occasionally a box full of them, for every special occasion. For years the only thing Emma wanted to do for her birthday was to browse in a bookstore with me for a couple of hours. A tradition I was happy to encourage, I assure you.

My husband has been an eager participant in this bookish life. He has read to our four children almost every single evening since the day our first child was born. Many of our shared memories and inside jokes come from the books we’ve read together. There are countless intellectual and moral benefits to creating a love of reading in your children, and I could talk about those all day long, but I think the greatest gift of being a family that reads together is the relationship it builds. I try to share this with parents of young children whenever I can. The most common response I hear is, “But how do I find good books?”

It’s a fair question. One would think that in this day of Big Box Bookstores it would be easy to find great literature. But if you’re not interested in super heroes in their underwear or angst ridden vampires you might need a little help. Your local librarian might be able to offer some guidance but often she is required to stock only current and trendy books.

Would you believe that one of the best places to find good books is in books? To my husband’s never ending amusement, I have three shelves full of books about books.

My new favourite is Read for the Heart by Sarah Clarkson. Sarah is the daughter of Sally Clarkson who wrote Educating the Wholehearted Child. Sarah writes beautifully about her childhood in a literary home. I appreciate this book because it is written from the perspective of someone who actually read the stories she recommends when she was a child. In my experience adults often love books that don’t really appeal to children. Sarah’s annotations are very helpful too. She shares just enough description to whet one’s appetite, which is much more helpful than just a list of books.

An old standby and oft given baby shower gift is The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. Mr. Trelease spent over thirty years speaking with parents and teachers about the importance of reading to children. His book is an inspiring source of research. But most wonderfully, he shares pages and pages of stories that are good for reading aloud.

When my children were little, it was a happy day when our Chinaberry catalogue arrived in the mail. The Chinaberry folks describe themselves as a company that “offers items to support families in raising their children with love, honesty and joy to be reverent, loving caretakers of each other and the earth.” Their catalogue is a work of art. I spent many an afternoon drinking pots of tea and reading every poetically written annotation of the books they sell. I think almost all of our most cherished picture books were discovered through Chinaberry. http://www.chinaberry.com/

One of my best discoveries as a homeschool mom has been TruthQuest History. http://www.truthquesthistory.com/  Karen Glass, an Ambleside Online Advisory member has written, “I took one look at my ‘Ancient Egypt/Ancient Greece’ guide from TruthQuest History and became a convert for life. [Other materials] are okay, even good. But TruthQuest History is better, and I’m not a fan of curriculum, usually. I really do consider TruthQuest History to be the finest history resource available to homeschoolers. These are top-notch. Although I have no concrete evidence to this effect, I have a hunch that if Charlotte Mason sent out teacher’s manuals with her term materials, they might have resembled these guides.”

Michelle Miller, the author of TruthQuest History, has dedicated many, many years to collecting books from the “Golden Age of Children’s Literature”. One could never incorporate every book she recommends into a Charlotte Mason style curriculum but we’ve been enjoying the books she lists as evening reading for years. I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a title we didn’t love.

Have you spent time at The Baldwin Project yet? www.mainlesson.com The site exists to make children’s books from before 1923 available for free! The stories are often the very best in children’s literature and are formatted beautifully. Many of the titles are also available for purchase in hardcopy and e-book versions from Yesterday’s Classics http://www.yesterdaysclassics.com/ . The best purchase I made this year was their complete collection for Kindle.

Once you start discovering the true gems of children’s literature you won’t be able to resist talking with your friends about them, and they of course, will want to share their favourites. Book suggestions from trusted friends are somehow doubly precious. I take great pleasure in reading a book that I know is beloved by someone I care about.

Nancy Kelly often shares delicious finds on her blog http://sageparnassus.blogspot.com/ . Everyone I know who has visited her home raves about her bookshelves. I hope to see them myself one day.

And finally, of course, there is the combined wisdom of the brilliant women from Ambleside Online. One can never go wrong with any of their suggestions. And if you do decide to purchase a book based on their recommendation, please do so through the link on their page. Buying books this way raises money for Ambleside which helps them to continue paying for their website and offering their life-changing work.

Our dear Charlotte Mason encourages us to build a memory with our children this season.

“Every Christmas and summer vacation should be marked by the family reading of some great work of literary renown, whether of history, or purely of belles lettres. The daily reading and discussion of one such work will give meaning and coherence to the history “grind” of the school, will keep up a state of mental activity, and will add zest to the general play and leisure of the holidays.” Volume 5, page 227

What will you be reading?

© Sandy Rusby Bell 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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