I wasn't looking for anything particular. But it turned into one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. I was browsing through the British Museum with time on my hands; there was no place that I just had to be that day, so I was where I wanted to be, in THE museum.
The rooms where documents were on display held fascinating finds for a wanderer, part of the Gutenberg Bible of 1456, the King James Bible of 1611 and a miniature of the Baptism of Christ painted in Germany around 1240. Among the sacred texts of western civilization, one jumped out at me as I passed. It seemed impossible: an original score of George Frideric Handel's "The Messiah," displayed between other holy texts. It was open at the Hallelujah Chorus. I could follow the dim scrawls of the tenor line and discovered that even music imagined has the power to transport the listener through time and space to pleasant memories.Where did I learn to regard this piece of music as a holy text? Why did the 250-year-old artifact hold my reverence? Had I studied it in school?
I suppose I could thank Armont Willardsen, who directed the South High a capella choir, for the reverent moment I spent looking at the manuscript. He had told us that memorizing the Hallelujah Chorus was a requirement to pass his class. We sang. He said that only people who memorized it could really feel it. We sang. He sometimes embarrassed us by making us sing our parts alone without music. We sang. He also said that the music was so good that anyone who sang it would be a better person. We sang it often.
I don't know whether or not Willardsen's drills made me a better person. Was it Willardsen or my father that first told me that "The Messiah" was composed in 21 days after a friend, Charles Jennens, compiled the scriptural references and gave them to Handel? The work reinvigorated the partially blind and stroke-paralyzed Handel. His friend saw him weep as he worked.
Perhaps school isn't where we learn to savor the holy artifacts of our culture. It may have been the annual Utah Oratorio Society concerts that my dad took me to each year that taught me to feel what I was hearing. My dad used to claim that he timed each guest conductor and wrote the time on the bassoon score. The time had something to do with the quality of the performance. I knew he was joking.
He also said that he would never go to a concert if he couldn't participate. "You really don't understand unless you participate." I knew he wasn't joking.
Perhaps it was the 30 years that he played with the Utah Symphony that helped make him so good.
If singing "The Messiah" makes people better, the people of Sanpete County are the best. For 59 consecutive years the people of Ephraim and Manti have gathered together with full orchestra and welcomed the Christmas season with "The Messiah." This year 124 singers joined a 63-member orchestra for two performances.
Judy Morgan was the director, and Dennis Hansen rehearsed the orchestra.
The tradition has had only two previous directors. Harry Dean directed the first performance 59 years ago and the Hallelujah Chorus at the 50th rendition. He was assisted those last few years of his half-century by McLoyd Ericksen, who kept the tradition going.
I don't know if there are people who have sung all 59 times, but I notice new people every year. Those new seem to founder a bit and are carried along by the veterans. But these beginners will some day be the veterans, and if Willardsen is right they will be better people for it.
It may not be the school that teaches students the power of music, although I remember teachers that tried. Some may have tried too hard. I recall diatribes against the popular music of the day and value judgments made by teachers that turned some to the very music the teacher railed against. I also remember Mrs. Patrick's embarrassed weeping during one week's Longene Symphony of the Air radio broadcast that was required listening each week for the fifth grade of the Whittier School. She was also the teacher who shut off the William Tell Overture right at the good part because Wayne Milne yelled "Heigh ho Silver, away."
It may be that people grow up liking the real classics if they think it is the grown-up thing to do. Kids who grow up seeing adults at symphony concerts, ballet, operas and performances of "The Messiah" will become adults that will enjoy the same experiences. This seems to happen in a community where adults (teachers and parents) make it clear to the next generation that some music is more than just enjoyment; it makes us better.
Congratulations to the people of Ephraim and Manti who are making the world better for their children. And thanks for letting me sing for the past couple decades. I hope it helps.