The Messiah Experience

A bright-eyed ‘evangelist’ called Gareth Malone has been winning over the most unlikely devotees to the ‘gospel' of community singing over the past few years in front of TV audiences of millions. He’s ventured into a boys comprehensive in Leicestershire, a run-down estate in South Oxhey, Hertfordshire persuading the most reluctant singers to join with their peers and discover the power of choral song. It’s made compulsive viewing as the cameras have recorded Gareth’s determination to help shuffling, self-conscious school-boys find their voice as they’ve rehearsed for the big concert at the Albert Hall. In the last series it was particularly moving to witness members of his choir from South Oxhey reduced to tears of pride and joy as they listened to their recording of a Beatles song at Abbey Road studios. I suppose what these ordinary folk have discovered, is how powerfully expressive they can be when they come together as one and respond to the inspirational guidance of a great leader such as the plucky young Gareth. The people of South Oxhey had apparently felt themselves to be a pretty worthless and insignificant lot up till then, but Gareth’s idea of staging an open-air concert on their vast common, galvanized them to work together to ensure it was a success. Perhaps the series has proved so moving because a huge choir of all ages and backgrounds like this is such a potent metaphor for the potential of a community when it is governed with passion, wisdom, and sensitivity. This is made all the more poignant at a time when so many people feel increasingly alienated from a society led by politicians who fiddle their expenses, or bankers and businesses that drive the nation to the brink of economic collapse through insatiable avarice.

In our own small way we have been following Gareth’s example at St. John’s Church as we have prepared for our second annual arts festival in Broadbridge Heath, West Sussex. (A Space for the Arts). On Saturday 10th October we will present “The Messiah Experience” in the church. This will feature a selection of Handel’s music from his great Oratorio sung by a choir pulled together from the local congregation including one or two professionals who have sung at Glyndebourne alongside several, including myself, for whom the whole choral tradition with its weird vocal warm ups and endless note-bashing is still a relatively novel experience. We will be joined on the platform by a community gospel choir largely drawn from the Catholic church in nearby Horsham. They will be singing funkier contemporary settings of the classic libretto accompanied by a band formed from the local community and led by a dynamic singer from our congregation who has much experience working with community choirs of all ages. In more recent rehearsals we have warmed up together at the start of the evening and reunited at the end to perform a little of what we have been rehearsing throughout the session to one another. Its great to encounter a whole new group of people through the immediacy of song rather than the tedium of social niceties. Anglicans have fused with Catholics, classically trained musicians with Gospel singers.
I am singing bass in the three songs the classical choir are offering including the rousing “Glory to God” and triumphal “The Hallelujah Chorus.” Its been fascinating to experience such familiar pieces being deconstructed by an excellent musician from Horsham, as she’s guided each section of the choir through their parts. Aside from getting on top of the melodies and timing the entries of your part (while others are singing something totally different) there’s the challenge of forming and placing the precise vowel-sounds which create the resonance Handel was after. The process is really painstaking initially and you wonder if you will ever master it individually, let alone corporately. It’s wonderful when reinforcements arrive unexpectedly to bolster your section. In an early rehearsal three novice choristers were struggling with our bass line in “Glory to God” when Alex, a doctor, pitched up after a long day at work. This experienced and confident singer instantly transformed us as we clustered around him like tiny ducklings following mother! It’s truly magical when each section has mastered their part and you put it all together. You’re able to hold your own line and sing it with abandon whilst hearing the whole score swirling all around you as if you are caught up in the air with the angels on that first Christmas Eve.
It’s 250 years since Handel’s death. He died just five months before his Oratorio was first performed in a provincial church like ours (though considerably larger). Up till then “The Messiah” had mainly been performed in theatres and concert halls. That first performance in 1759 in a church in Leicestershire was also part of a festival organized by the local congregation. It cost five shillings and attracted two thousand people, though the rector estimated that around twenty-five thousand folk from the surrounding countryside jammed the roads into town eager to be part of the festival in some way. Accommodation over the weekend was so scarce that the Earl of Devonshire had to take a room with the local tanner. Since then The Messiah or parts of it at least have been sung by church and community choirs of varying standards all over the world proclaiming “good news” to generation after generation in “The Hallelujah Chorus.” We will do well to get 200 into our much smaller provincial church at a cost of £10 a ticket (not a bad increase considering inflation over a quarter of a millennium). All profits will be ploughed into our newly formed Space Arts Trust ensuring we can continue to pay the odd soloist from Glyndebourne and professional instrumentalists to make sure we do justice to works such as this for many years to come.