Blessing and Honor and Glory and Power

It started two or three weeks ago. I was driving somewhere and felt the urge to dial the MP3 player to Messiah. Because by mid-November, you should be rehearsing Messiah and hearing it in your head all the time, right? I only played in Messiah in college, but those years apparently carved this work so deeply into my brain that November weather and the general November atmosphere stimulate the Messiah response, and I can't do without it.

On one weekend each December for the past hundred years or so, my undergraduate school's choir and orchestra has given three performances of Messiah. Although I loved playing in my college's orchestra, I didn't really embrace the tradition or the oratorio. I enjoyed a few incredibly powerful parts of it, but other parts, frankly, dragged. Then there was the physical aspect. I was used to playing 10-12 hours per week (including practicing, orchestra rehearsals, and my lesson), so playing in three three-hour performances within 48 hours was quite tiring. Plus, the college generally (and the music department specifically) took the Messiah tradition so, so seriously that you couldn't resist making fun of it. 

One year--maybe senior year, when we were rather emboldened--some friends and I wrote a parody of "The Night Before Christmas" with verses pertaining to our Messiah experiences. ("Then what our wandering minds never would guess / All four soloists in tasteful dress!"... "From the back of the stage to the back of the hall / Now rush away, rush away, rush away, all!" ... that sort of thing.) We posted the parody, with festive hand-drawn illustrations, on a bulletin board in the music building in the dark of night. 

At my next lesson, my college violin teacher, Dr. O, asked in a somewhat icy tone, "Do you have any idea who is responsible for that 'Night Before Christmas' thing?" I answered, "Um...I am, among others." "Who else?" she wanted to know. I named four or five names that included other "good kids" like myself from the orchestra and choir, and she changed the subject. In retrospect, I think she probably did not like the idea of orchestra kids making trouble in the eyes of the aging and revered choir conductor, who was the main embodiment and guardian of the Messiah tradition. Our idea of good, clean fun might have been rather unhelpful in relation to some intra-departmental dynamics that we students were blissfully clueless about.

But really, I think we kid(ded) because on some level, we love(d). One of my favorite parts of Messiah was and is the "Worthy is the Lamb/Amen" finale. The video below uses the exact recording I would have worn to shreds by now if such a thing were possible with digital music. Listening to it brings back how my whole being zoomed into focus as the section at 4:09 approached, where the violins get their very exposed turn with the "Amen" riff. I think the Extreme Focus switch still flips at least part of the way in my brain when I hear this. Hear this.

Video via csheff1014 and YouTube