THE MESSIAH
Your beautiful critique on Saturday's performance of Handel's "Messiah," and remarks on the reverence and impressiveness of it aIL due. as you say, in no small measure to the audience refraining from distracting applause, prompts me to mention that one of Handel's biographers has stated that the great composer locked himself up in his studio for 48 hours while writing the score, and neither ate nor drank anything till "Messiah" was finished. 'While composing the most sublime passages in the oratorio, it is said that Heaven opened before his eyes and he saw the angelic hosts. When Handel heard the first performance he fell on his knees with tears falling down his cheeks and thanked God for making him the instrument of expression of such divine music. One trusts that never again in Auckland will applause be heard at a "Messiah* performance, for it certainly is the height of "bad form" to do so. J.C3L
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Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 303, 23 December 1941, Page 4
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157THE MESSIAH Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 303, 23 December 1941, Page 4
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