And I think to myself, what a wonderful world!

George Frideric Handel was one of the most popular composers in Britain in the 18th Century. He composed operas in the Italian style and these were premièred in the Haymarket Theatre in London. Many of them are still performed today. In 1741 the theatre changed hands and Handel did not get on with the new management. He decided to get out of the business of writing operas and switched to another type of music, oratorio. This is a type of work based on religious texts, featuring singers, choir and orchestra, and was becoming popular. He also left London and went on a tour around the British Isles, arriving in Dublin in 1742. Over the course of three weeks, he wrote his most famous oratorio, Messiah, with words chosen from the Bible by the librettist Charles Jennens, and it was performed in Dublin in April 1742. The first performance took place in Mr Neal's new 'Musick Hall' in Fishamble Street. Because of the small auditorium, the ladies of the audience were asked to leave their hoops at home, a reference to the hooped skirts common at the time.

Messiah has always been a favourite piece of music in Dublin ever since. The first performance used boys from the choir schools of St Patrick's Cathedral and Christchurch Cathedral. The choir school of Christchurch is long gone, but the choir school of St Patrick's Cathedral is still going strong: founded in 1472, it is still providing the singers for the services in the cathedral.

I'm in a large choir, and for the last 19 years, we've performed Messiah every year in St Patrick's Cathedral. We sing it on the first Wednesday and Thursday in December. As I write this, it is still a few days away, but by the time this is published, we'll have already sung the first night and will be looking forward to the second performance. St Patrick's is a wonderful location for the performance. It's the biggest cathedral in Ireland, and is run by the Church of Ireland, Ireland's Anglican religion. The building is very impressive and well worth a visit in itself—you can see the tomb of Jonathan Swift, the writer of Gulliver's Travels, who was dean of the cathedral for many years. This is one of the few places where you will see the United Kingdom's Union Flag hanging, as the flags were hung many years ago when Ireland was still part of the Union, and the condition was that they would hang there until they fell down through decay. They're still there.

There's between 100 and 150 in our choir, so we can't fit into the normal choir stalls or on the altar. We have to construct a special scaffolding stage to hold us all, and the orchestra are rather crammed into quite a small space in front, but luckily it's only a small orchestra of about 20 players. With four soloists and the conductor in front of that again, there's room for about 500 people in the main nave of the church, but we can fit another 700 in the side aisles and the various transepts and other architectural-sounding places of the cathedral. Although people in these seats may not be able to see very well, the sound in the cathedral is fabulous and you'll hear everything no matter where you're sitting.

We sing for charity: every couple of years we pick a new charity, because each charity organisation has a different potential audience. We found that if we stick with the same charity for a number of years, the audiences start to drop off after a few years. All the people associated with the charity have heard us and don't want to go again. I hope that's not a bad sign. This year the charity is an organisation called Bóthar. They encourage agriculture in poor countries by donating animals such as cows, goats and sheep to poor farmers who can't afford them. It's a good system. The farming family gets a pregnant cow. They bring up the calf, and then are required to donate the calf to another family, passing on the gift. It seems to work well. We hope to raise between 5,000 and 10,000 euros for this charity with our two performances.

When I heard 19 years ago that the choir was going to perform the same work every year, I did not think it would last long. I didn't think the audience would be there to listen to it, and I didn't think I'd want to sing it. But every year I get to like Messiah more. The work is a religious one, but don't let that worry you if you are not religious yourself. I classify myself as an atheist, but that doesn't stop me enjoying the music. Our performance lasts about two and three quarter hours, including an interval, but within that there is pure orchestral music (the overture and the pastoral symphony), songs sung by soloists, recitative which is a sort of musical storytelling, where the soloists narrate events, and there are of course the choruses. Most people will at least have heard of the Hallelujah Chorus, which is the most famous one from the work. Well, there's plenty of other choruses too and that's where the choir comes in. I sing as a bass, the lowest voice in the choir. Some of the men are tenors, who sing higher. The women are also divided into low (alto) and high (soprano).

Messiah is divided into three parts. The first talks about the birth of Jesus Christ. As a result it has become traditional to perform Messiah at Christmas. There's the lovely section "There were shepherds abiding in the fields" leading to "For unto us a child is born".

The second part tells of the trials of Jesus upon this Earth "He was despised" and "All we like sheep have gone astray". Christ's death is obliquely referred to: "He was cut off from the land of the living", but suddenly there is a change of mood: "But thou didst not leave his soul in hell" and the music is jolly and triumphant, ending in the magnificent "Hallelujah Chorus".

This marks the end of Part 2, and sounds so much like the end that many people actually leave at this point. Admittedly it's normally 10pm at this stage and they want to get home. But the music continues with Part 3, which concentrates on how Christ's work has saved us all: "so in Christ shall all be made alive" and "The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised". In order to get home before midnight we actually leave out a few numbers in Part 3, but the bones of it are there. The performance ends with the mighty "Amen" which manages to stretch a single word out to about 3 minutes of complex counterpoint.

We almost always get a standing ovation—Irish audiences are very appreciative.

So if you are reading this on Thursday evening at about 8pm, the lights are just dimming in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. The choir and orchestra are in place on the stage. A hush is falling over the audience as the soloists and conductor arrive and take their bows. Everything is ready. The conductor lifts her baton and the first notes of the overture begin. And with it, the Christmas season has begun in earnest.

Gnomon

04.12.08 Front Page

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