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ALL YOU NEED
Loving Handel’s Messiah
No matter what fate deals, we will always have music
During rehearsal last week, as we approached the close of the Great Amen in G. F. Handel’s iconic oratorio Messiah, I could not finish due to being overcome with emotion. Tears stood in my eyes but I was a long way from sad.
Music never just laughs or cries; it always laughs and cries at the same time.
-Daniel Barenboim
Nor was I laughing. Rather, it was the rough equivalent of the emotion engendered by witnessing the marriage of a child now grown, or when you beheld your first child or grandchild.
The appeal of music and laughter is not easy to make rational sense of. Our tears often seem irrational. Yet music, laughter, and tears are common across every human culture. I could be in Timbuktu and if I started crying, laughing, or singing, I would connect with my fellow humans.
If you sing at all, you know that your body vibrates when you do so, particularly in the regions of your head and chest. Now imagine that taken to the level of a communal experience. If your choir is singing a passage in unison, you notice your own voice powerfully amplified, strengthening the emotional impact of whatever you are…
