Word: messiahs
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...Messiah is one of those unique masterpieces which must be done perfectly if it is to be done at all. Handel created the music in 24 days of concentrated effort. Every phrase plays a key part in the whole; each line is at once a beautiful thing in itself and an ornament to the rest. If even the second violins play sloppily, an excellent chorus cannot atone; if a recitative is hurried, a perfectly paced aria becomes pointless. The grandeur of Handel, like the glory of Bach, cannot rest on Yuletide spirit alone...
However, the Pierian Sodality was fooled into thinking that a Messiah performance could be slapped together in little rehearsal time. Friday night's concert relied too heavily on traditional enthusiasm as a substitute for technical proficiency. After the tenor's Every valley shall be exalted, for instance, the chorus And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed should follow as a natural extension of the aria. Conductor Alfred Nash Patterson permitted long gaps of silence which destroyed the relationship. He misconceived some musical details as well. Instead of grouping the dotted rhythms of the overture in melodic phrases...
...Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and the Pierian Sodality Chorus will present Handel's "Messiah," including the entire Christmas portion and Corelli's Christmas Concerto in Sanders Theatre today...
...troublemaker "), Burton passes the time on Calvary by winning Christ's robe in a dice game. In the earth-shaking storm that follows the Crucifixion, Burton loses his robe, his slave and apparently his sanity. Returned to Italy, he becomes convinced that he was bewitched by the dead Messiah, and accepts an imperial commission to go back to Palestine to investigate the un-Roman activities of the new sect. He finds Mature and the robe at Cana, in Galilee, but exposure to the gentle habits of the Cana Christians puts him on the road to conversion. The final...
...also long hours of serious give & take with a rabbi. As with each retreat, the most moving moment was the evening ceremony of Havdalah (Separation), which ushers out the Sabbath, Music Director Helfman's voice rose in the sacred song of Elijah, who will herald the coming Messiah; in three concentric circles, their arms around each other's shoulders and waists, the men picked up the chant, swaying with the cadence. When the service ended and the lights came on one by one, many of these harddriving, hard-driven city men seemed to feel their Jewishness...