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December 7, 2008
From Religious Tract to Musical Classic
This is free concert season at the local colleges, three of them in the last three days and two more to come early in the week. This afternoon the Pomona College Choir under the direction of Donna M. DiGrazia preformed selections from George Frideric Handel's Messiah. The Pomona College Choir is an auditioned choir of about seventy five voices, mostly, but not exclusively, Pomona College students. There were four guest soloists and a small pickup orchestra, nineteen pieces, mostly college professors and students with a couple of guest musicians. The full Pomona College Orchestra had their big Fall concert last night. The choir, soloists and orchestra provided a wonderful performance of the selections from Messiah. A well earned standing ovation followed the music. It is worth noting here that the typical audience for such events is always enthusiastic but seldom does it show its praise with a standing ovation. While all four soloists did a marvelously job, Shirley and I both thought the tenor and the bass were stronger than the soprano or the alto. We disagreed on whether the soprano or the alto was the weaker of the two.
But having abnormal interests, my post performance attention turned to something in the official printed program, something written by Handel scholar Graydon Beeks. After describing the various influences on Handel's work in general and the musical and social context of his Messiah, Beeks turned to the libretto, Charles Jennens. Among other things, he wrote this of Jennens,
Jennens was concerned with refuting the ideas of the Deist s then current in intellectual circles, and with supporting the beliefs of the established church. He would presumably have been surprised to see Messiah embraced almost immediately by members of nonconformist denominations as part of the religious awakening that swept England and America in the later eighteenth century. One can only image what he would have thought of today's multi-cultural society in which Messiah is more likely to be viewed as a musical "classic" rather than a religious tract.
The audience was certainly multi-cultural. While the majority was likely Christian, I know with certainty that there were Jews, Hindis, and Buddhists along with a fairly large contingent of secularists in the audience. With very few exceptions, we all stood for the Hallelujah Chorus and without exception we all participated in a rather ruckus demonstration of our appreciation at the end.
Two questions come to mind: Does the evolution of a work of art from a religions statement to a multi-cultural classic follow a common pathway to eventual secularization? What, if any, current religious statements are likely to follow such a path?
Posted by Duane Smith at December 7, 2008 8:47 PM | Read more on Religion |
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Comments
Not sure what you have in mind by "common path". The very existence of successive religious revivals might suggest a fairly high background of secularism + social churchgoing (I am not an historian) and the enthusiastic reception at the time might have more to do with its being recognised as a bloody good sing even for amateurs than with any religious sentiment other than that the story would have been a familiar one.
Contemporary - well fairly contemporary obvious examples of instant religious -> secular are works of Messiaen. Who hasn't puzzled over the headings to the "Kind regards to the infant Jesus" - can any Catholics out there explain what OM could possibly have meant? On the other hand the music is glorious whatever (and a very good work-out too, if you've the time to learn it).
Posted by: Gav at December 8, 2008 9:55 AM
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