h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This may surprise you, Dmitri, but Betsy Burleigh conducted my choral society once, many years ago. I liked her a lot. I'm glad she's doing good things in Pittsburgh.

Ah - I didn't realise it was 'All...', not 'Oh...' That makes it much clearer that it isn't a sentence in its own right and there is more to follow

Yes, it is a good song with meandering notes - very pleasing to listen to

Unfortunately I just get a blank page from that Post Gazette link - everything including Facebook and Google Analytics loads on the page except the actual text... 'Word Painting' is a good description, though - I can visualise that in relation to the sheep

, Paul.

Sorry about the link, Sasha - trying to find you an alternative one, I realise that Baroque word painting must be a school topic, too - we probably should have a Guide Entry sometime.

There is a reference to word painting in the EG under 'Dido and Aeneas' - A425909 Good entry, there. And spot-on about Nahum Tate not being the high point of English literature. He's the one who rewrote 'King Lear' with a happy ending, I believe...

[I must remember the subject line]

Haydn also did some word painting in "The Creation" and "The Seasons." Was he happy about having to do it? No! He blamed the French for coming up with such stuff. But here's the connection with Handel: The fellow who wrote the libretto for Handel's Messiah also wrote a libretto for an oratorio based on Milton's"Paradise lost." Handel declined to set it to music. Fifty or sixty years later, Baron Von Swieten found a copy of it and thought it would make a fine oratorio for the Viennese audience. So he roped Haydn into setting it as "The Creation" [" Die Schöpfung"]

So there we have progression from Handel's word-painting to Haydn's similar effects, linked by the same librettist.

We once heard 'Die Schöpfung' in a Munich cathedral. Very nice.

I've often gone out of my way to hear it.

I also enjoy Messiah sings, which are performances that use the audience as a chorus. Soloists and instrumentalists are hired, but the audience caries much of the show.