Advent study

Monday
Another desperation blip! This evening I was preparing for our advent study tomorrow evening. Roger and I are doing this advent study, "Hallelujah: the Bible and Handel's Messiah, which is being led by Shirley, one of our assistant pastors. We are just studying the Christmas portion now, over 4 weeks, and we will continue with the Easter section during Lent. The study uses the oratorio as an avenue into the biblical texts on which Messiah is based. It is designed to deepen one's appreciation of both the words and music.

Messiah has to be one of my favorite pieces of music. There's a BBC radio program I remember from my younger years, which is still running today, called Desert Island Discs, where a public figure is asked to imagine if they were cast away on a desert island, which eight records, book and luxury item would they want to take with them. I think for me, top of my list of music would be Handel's Messiah, since that would supply me not only with beautiful inspiring music, but also a source of scripture. Messiah also has special family memories for me. My Mum was a pianist - she used to teach and do a lot of accompanying. I was born in Derby, and the church we went to, the central Methodist mission, used to do a performance of Handel's Messiah every year, and Mum would play for the choir for all the rehearsals and would play, together with organ, a string orchestra, trumpet and timpani, at the performance. We moved to Sheffield, about 35 miles away, when I was 5, going on 6, but Mum continued to go back and play for the Messiah for a number of years, until the church no longer did it every year. So I remember starting to go to performances of the Messiah from an early age. Mum would go over by train the evening before, and Dad and us kids would drive over for the performance. Not surprisingly as a young child I found much of it pretty boring, but once I could read, and was beginning to play the piano, Mum would give us a copy of the score and my Dad or brother or sister would help me follow along. I remember early on coming to love The Trumpet shall sound and the Hallelujah chorus - I expect part of the reason at that time, was that I began to realize that meant it was soon coming to an end! Another fond memory is the journey home. There would be a tea for the performers in the late afternoon, and we would get some of the left-over sandwiches and cakes to eat in the car! Ever since those years, a Christmas doesn't seem complete to me unless I get to hear a live performance or perform in at least a portion of Handel's Messiah!

One year ago: Goldenrod seed head