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| ... title page of Handel's autographed score ... |
I put on the Messiah this morning, thinking, “hmm… what are my favourite 3 or 4 pieces here?” since I have asked that question of others.
I had only got through the overture, and into the first few refrains of “Comfort ye”, and the tears were sliding down my cheeks.
I had the flashback I often have to sitting at church in the Bow Valley Chapel (on our usual front pew location) beside Arta (I am sure I was not yet 10) and listening to someone do a song from the Messiah.
I could see tears slipping down her cheeks, and couldn’t figure out why: the song was not all that impressive to me….
Makes total sense now.
Never sure what part of it is in the words, or the music, or the past, or experiences of life, or of memories of singing with others, or all the various efforts to somehow capture the feeling of the ineffable, or thinking about the processes of composition, of all the hard work of “making” things in the world, or of performing them?
Rebecca
I like it when the trumpets play and everyone stands for that one word!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking that there is no other music that we stand for. Then I had to stand corrected.
ReplyDeleteThe national anthem -- unless a person wants to go to one knee for it.