Christmas Eve..
just listened to Vienna Boys Choir. With Peter Marschik and Wiener zsängerknaben
The Messiah - Handel’s complete materpiece.
on Qobuz. CD quality 16/44. Incredible sound quality completely filled the room with the venue, the orchestra and palpable singers. Wow!
Couldn’t help myself with certain parts. Moved to tears 😭 Yes I am getting too soft as I advance in years. Thank goodness no-one was around to see. I must have been a pathetic sight 😬 The Messiah is just on another level. It is not so complex and technically masterful as Bach’s magnificent Christmas Oratorio, but the Messiah is just so very special. A better testament to devotion of the Christ Jesus in the form of music does not exist. The combination of the texts prepared by a devout Anglican librettist, Charles Jennens, put to music by a master of opera George Frederic Handel, produced the profound and enduring masterpiece so many enjoy especially at Christmas. As a ‘20-pence’ boy choruster in a cathedral choir, I sung the Messiah on a few occasions. Handel by invitation of The Duke of Devonshire, then appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, first performed the work in Dublin, Ireland.
Then moved on to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, a 2007 recording conducted by the marvelous Nikolaus Harnoncourt with soprano Christine Schäfer and bass baritone Chritian Gerhaher. This is a 24/96 recording and ye gods, the sound was spectacular. The performance was very fine. I love this masterwork and it is soul-stirring.
Finally, I did not attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve this year - something I love to do. I usually go to the beautiful Methodist church on Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood CA (Los Angeles). On a couple of occasions we have been treated to many members of the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra playing treats such as the Messiah for us.
As I did not venture over there this year, I listened to an old CD recording I have of The King’s College choir A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. I sung these as a boy choruster many times. I even sung the Once In David’s Royal City first-verse solo in front of many hundreds of people and indeed mildly botched up one of the lessons I was chosen to to read.
One Carol moves me so much. It always does. It is profoundly beautiful. It was composed by Christina Georgina Rossetti in 1870 and released posthumously in 1904:
1. In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
2. Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
3. Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.
4. Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
5. What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.
