It's Saturday afternoon and I'm at work.
Selling Messiah tickets.
The Community of Christ Church (formerly RLDS) sponsored an annual performance of the Messiah that dates back 90 years. After the performance 2 years ago the church announced they were letting it go after the 2005 performance. Well in swoops our E.D. (read about him here and/or here) and "saves the day" by taking over the performance. Great. Now we get to sell 2 performances of the Messiah. As if o1 isn't bad enough.
I first heard Messiah complete when I was a junior in high school.
I heard it again 2 years ago. The only reason I went was because Jaques was performing the alto solo (not too shabby; actually he was pretty awesome!).
That makes it 10 years between performances. I guess that's okay.
I think perhaps we should use Messiah as a yardstick of good taste. If you ask a person if they like Messiah you can probably deduce that they have little in the way of good taste.
Perhaps we should use Sir Thomas Beecham's orchestration next year!
3 comments:
Some of us find Baroque music to be extremely well-crafted and more spiritually fulfilling than a lot of music. Some of us can actulaly see the value in Baroque music, and consider ourselves people of very good taste--refined, well-informed.
I'm sorry, but I can't let that slide. I can't help but disagree with your accusation that liking Handel is synonymous with poor taste. Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Except for that. And that. And that and that and that and that.
Granted, I don't personally listen to Handel much at all, but... as a general rule, Baroque music = good.
I think you've missed the point, my young apprentice.
I didn't say Baroque music now did I? I also wrote that we should use Messiah as a yardstick, not Handel. Handel wrote much greater music than this yet somehow this has become the tradition. Saul, for example, is a much better oratorio than Messiah. I just meant that there are a great deal of people out there that think that this is the greatest music ever written but don't actually have a well of knowledge from which to make that statement. If it's the only piece of classical (lower-case) music that they know, or they refuse to listen to anything but Baroque and Classical (upper-case) music then they don't really have the knowledge to be making such a broad (and mindless) statement. In fact, anyone that says that "such and such" is the greatest piece of classical music ever, regardless of when it was written, one should run to the nearest bar for cover because they're either going to try and sell you something or start evangelizing.
As far as your accusations of disliking the Baroque I also must disagree. I find Vivaldi a somewhat tougher pill to swallow. Given the right mood I don't mind Handel. But I'll take J.S. Bach and Dietrich Buxtehude over the others any day.
I got your point. I'm saying, as someone who finds Messiah to be a great work, I don't like having negative stigma attached to that like. You were talking about using it as a yardstick to condemn people who find value in it, you didn't say before about people calling it the greatest piece of music ever. If that's the case, then I'll throw the first stone... because someone who claims it's the "best piece of classical music ever" is obviously biased due to their religious interest. They are also wrong to call it "classical" in the first place. God I hate that. If you don't even know the difference between Classical and Baroque, how can you be so bold as to declare a piece the greatest in the period??
In summary, I agree with you. I jumped the gun based on a minor misinterpretation, and I am sorry. But. Vivaldi is the shizzle.
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