COMFORT, EXALTED VALLEYS, & MOUNTAINS MADE LOW
Many Christians celebrate the beginning to Holy Week today - a strangely non-communal experience in these times of enforced isolation worldwide. Under normal circumstances, I would be touring around the world, singing Bach’s Passion settings. Had this pandemic not brought the world to a grinding halt, today I would have been in my childhood home of Ann Arbor, singing Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Apollo’s Fire for the University Musical Society.
Just like many churches that are unable to celebrate this week’s traditions due to the bans on public gatherings that are in place, many music organizations are streaming performances of their archives in lieu of the performances they had planned for this time. The first of these that I can share is a performance from last December of Handel’s Messiah with the Handel and Haydn Society and Masaaki Suzuki at Boston’s Symphony Hall.
While I know that Messiah has become more associated with Christmas over the centuries, the piece really is more of an Easter story, as only one third of it deals with the Christmas story. The rest is much more focused on this part of the church year. However, the main reason I share this now has less to do with how aptly timed the piece is for Western Christians, but because the opening aria could never be more relevant.
One of the major aspects that is so trying about this crisis is the impossibility of knowing when it will end. As the world shelters in place, time itself seems to have suspended, and it can often feel that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Personally, I find myself needing to be constantly reminded that there is another side to all of this, and that we will emerge there eventually.
This opening aria of Messiah, with its message of comfort and the ecstatic reminder that brighter days are ahead could not feel more necessary in times like these. Nor could the images of valleys being exalted and mountains being made low be more poignant, as we strive as a world to “flatten the curve”.
The video below is cued up to begin right at the aria (skipping the opening sinfonia) and continues to play the remainder of Part I of Messiah. Parts II and III can be seen HERE.
For those who are celebrating this week, I wish you all a very happy holiday week. To everyone, I wish you and your loved ones good health and safety during these scary times. Wash your hands, stay home as much as you can, and fingers crossed these times of social distance come to an end sooner rather than later.