Anyone else have to sing Handel’s Messiah all four years they were in high school choir?\u00a0 No?\u00a0 Just me?!<\/p>\n
And as a result –\u00a0at this time of year – and especially this year since they’re unemployed and mostly live in their vast, cavernous head – constantly recall snippets of all those songs and\/or the full songs (but just the Alto part)?\u00a0 Still just me on this one?!?<\/p>\n
I mean things like:\u00a0 Lift up your heads O! Ye gates!\u00a0 And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors!\u00a0 And the King of Glory shall come ii-hii-hiin!\u00a0 (deep voice now) And the King of Glory shall come iiiin!<\/p>\n
Or how about:\u00a0 And He shall purify!\u00a0 And He shall purify!\u00a0 And He shall pur-i-fy-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi the sons of Levi!\u00a0 And he shall purify. (soprano part now, start again) And he shall pur-i-fy!<\/p>\n
And one more since I’m in the spirit of the thing now: Oh, thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.\u00a0 Arise!\u00a0 Shine!\u00a0 For thy light has come.\u00a0 And the glo-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-ryyyyy of\u00a0the Lord, the glo-or-ryyy o-of the Lord, is risen upon (sung\u00a0“upond”)\u00a0thee!<\/p>\n
And then there’s my favorite solo.\u00a0 “Behold a Virgin Shall Conceive.”\u00a0 Amidst all of the boldness\u00a0and intricacy\u00a0of\u00a0the other songs is a short solo, made even more lovely by its simplicity and thus total\u00a0contrast to the rest of the work.<\/p>\n
Every year all the\u00a0Senior girls tried out for it because it was so short, which required minimum effort, yet maximum\u00a0glory and more free time to socialize.\u00a0 Priorities after all.\u00a0 But what we didn’t realize is that this is the piece\u00a0from which the entire work stems.\u00a0 And as a result is\u00a0the most important piece of music in the whole thing\u00a0(well, in my mind at least – remember that cavernous head comment earlier?\u00a0 I’ve got waaa-ay-ay-ay too much time to think about this).<\/p>\n
It goes like this:\u00a0 Behold, a Virgin shall conceive.\u00a0 And bear a son.\u00a0 And shall call his name – Emmanuel.\u00a0 God with us.<\/p>\n
‘Nuf said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone else have to sing Handel’s Messiah all four years they were in high school choir?\u00a0 No?\u00a0 Just me?! And as a result –\u00a0at this time of year – and especially this year since they’re unemployed and mostly live in their vast, cavernous head – constantly recall snippets of all those songs and\/or the full […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":492,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions\/492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}