Are you supposed to hallucinate during Handel’s Messiah? I guess I didn’t actually hallucinate. It was more like
synesthesia, seeing sound as shapes and color. Whatever it was, it happened to
this Floridian in Michigan in a Baptist church that looked Episcopalian while
listening to a mostly-student production of what may be the most nearly perfect
piece of music ever composed on this earth. I’d been looking forward to this
concert since my youngest son first applied to Hillsdale College in Hillsdale,
Michigan, and I learned they put on the Messiah
every four years in order to give every singer/musician a chance to
participate. Isaac is a junior, and he was in the choir. I flew up for the
weekend and attended both Friday and Saturday performances.
Just being on the Hillsdale campus starts my perceptions altering.
Strolling the “quad,” I feel I’ve been transported into a Jimmy Stewart film
with the same spirit of serious study, good fun and general wholesomeness.
Students smile at me and say hello. This does not happen on large state
university campuses. Jeans and sweatshirts abound, but so do pretty dresses,
trim wool coats and fanciful scarves. Some of the young men wear coats and
ties, and even fedoras, if they happen to be members of a certain music
fraternity. If my math is correct, a good tenth of the students are part of the
Messiah choirs and orchestra. Their
majors include everything from math to economics to biology, not just music.
I’m
told that all tickets are spoken for, and the College Baptist Church fills
quickly from floor to balcony. The stained glass, high ceiling and exposed
beams look more like Episcopal style than the Southern Baptist churches of my
youth, and they make a perfect setting for the music. Robed choristers file
onto rows of risers, followed by the Chamber Choir, boys in black suits and red
ties, girls in elegant black dresses with sweetheart necklines. In the center
of the orchestra is an ornate harpsichord.
At
Christmas time, I inundate my kitchen with Messiah
on CD, the Academy of Ancient Music version, conducted by Christopher Hogwood.
I’ve never heard the whole thing in person before, and I’m pretty excited when
the overture begins. There’s the tenor, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people…” The
choir belts out “And the glory, the
glory of the Lord shall be re-veal-ed…” Do choirs belt? At any rate, the
powerful rush of sound tells me I’m to be carried out of the ordinary. They are
singing the Bible to me, and I think they must believe what they are singing,
or at least have a pretty good idea of the majesty and eternal importance of
the words. The students all have papers due and finals to prepare for, yet they’ve
devoted themselves to this production. It’s a fine thing.
One
of the lovely sopranos steps forward and begins her aria, “Rejoice greatly, O
daughter of Zion…” I close my eyes to marvel at the richness and intricacy of
the sound. How does it come from a human throat? Here is the synesthesia. The
sound rises in plumes, bright white on one side, shaded on the other, curving
around an invisible axis. I
wish I could draw it. Have you seen pictures of the Spanish dancer sea
creature? (It’s a “sea slug,” but that word is far too coarse. So is “nudibranch.”)
Its edges undulate like the hem of a dancer’s skirt. The sound was like that.
You see how weak words are for this. I suppose that’s why the sound had to go
three-dimensional in my head.
 |
| A Spanish dancer. Hear it? |
Not everyone was transported. One preteen boy near me clomped out and
missed the Hallelujah Chorus. He returned at its end to drop back into the pew
and just about bounce me off the end. Too bad. The rest of us had stood, like
George II, and thrilled to the music. Conductor Hogwood of my CD version calls
the tradition “unnecessary,” but I love it.
Altogether, the program was about two and a quarter hours of music, with
no intermission. It didn’t seem that long. After the final “amen,” the audience
stood and cheered and applauded for a long time. “The glory of the Lord”
indeed.
