{"id":2136,"date":"2010-12-20T06:09:02","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T11:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tmatt.net\/?p=2136"},"modified":"2010-12-20T06:09:02","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T11:09:02","slug":"hallelujah-saith-the-masses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/","title":{"rendered":"Hallelujah, saith the masses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

As millions of YouTube viewers know, the \u201cHallelujah Chorus\u201d is even hotter than usual this year.<\/p>\n

The wave started with a flash-mob performance<\/a> by the Opera Company of Philadelphia and hundreds of local choristers. Dressed as shoppers, they sang the best-known anthem from George F. Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d oratorio at noon in the downtown Philadelphia Macy\u2019s, which was already decked out for the holidays on Oct. 30th.<\/p>\n

Then came the Nov. 13th performance<\/a> that sent this viral-video trend into overdrive, when 100 vocalists \u2014 led by a young woman singing the opening hallelujahs into her cellphone \u2014 shocked a food-court crowd in a Welland, Ontario, shopping mall.<\/p>\n

There are online reports and rumors about similar \u201cHallelujah Chorus\u201d sneak attacks in the marketplace. The key is that many onlookers know this classic by heart and can sing along without missing many beats.<\/p>\n

These are strange scenes, but they would not surprise anyone who has studied the history of Handel\u2019s masterwork and its stunning popularity, especially among American believers, said Calvin R. Stapert, a retired music professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. He is the author of the new book, \u201cHandel\u2019s Messiah: Comfort for God\u2019s People<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Macy\u2019s performance was spectacular and the food-court performance was just as fascinating in its own way, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne part of me says, \u2018Wonderful!\u2019 It\u2019s thrilling. \u2026 Then I look at the comments that people keep writing\u201d at YouTube.com as they respond to the videos, said Stapert. \u201cSome of them are so deeply moved that this anthem to their Savior is being sung in such a secular environment. Then there are others who make it clear that, for them, this is nothing more than \u2026 a novel way of saluting a cornerstone of Western musical culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one knows why \u201cMessiah\u201d has become so popular, noted Stapert, in his book. The work\u2019s omnipresence \u2014 with performances in churches, civic centers and elite concert halls \u2014 is probably the result of \u201cmusical, textual, social, religious and psychological factors that will never be completely unraveled.\u201d There is no precedent in music history for this phenomenon.<\/p>\n

For starters, Handel is an unlikely hero for today\u2019s musical masses. He was a \u201creluctant eighteenth-century German Lutheran composer who would have preferred to continue writing Italian operas in Protestant England, a country that had no oratorio tradition until he \u2018invented\u2019 it. The rest, as they say, is history,\u201d wrote Stapert.<\/p>\n

This musical form \u2014 the oratorio \u2014 was also a unique and at times controversial kind of art. Handel composed \u201cMessiah\u201d and many of his greatest works in a cultural no man\u2019s land between the music common in sacred sanctuaries and the lively, entertaining, operatic works that were popular in theaters and concert halls. Nevertheless, most oratorios were based on the lives of biblical heroes and early Christian saints.<\/p>\n

Then there was \u201cMessiah: A Sacred Oratorio,\u201d which was composed in 24 days and performed for the first time in Dublin in 1742 and a year later in London. The libretto covered the drama of the full Christian liturgical year, yet the work was never intended for church performances. Handel originally composed the work for approximately 24 skilled singers and 24 instrumentalists.<\/p>\n

Today, \u201cMessiah\u201d is often performed with choruses consisting of 100 singers or more and orchestras of every imaginable size and composition. In many performances, amateur performers are forced to cut the tempos of Handel\u2019s mercurial, dancing choruses until they resemble lumbering musical stampedes.<\/p>\n

To state the matter bluntly, noted Stapert, no complex work of classical music \u201chas survived, let alone thrived, on so many performances, good, bad, and indifferent, by and for so many people year after year for such a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the most famous anthem from this Christian masterpiece has reached the true public square of our age, in the same mix as \u201cJingle Bells\u201d and \u201cRudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to ask,\u201d noted Stapert, \u201cif many people are really listening to the words. After all, who is this \u2018King of Kinds and Lord of Lords\u2019? \u2026 You have to think that the cultural police would be out in a matter of minutes to shut this down if people were paying attention to this profoundly Christian work that is being sung right out in the open, in a mall. Has the \u2018Hallelujah Chorus\u2019 become so familiar that people cannot hear what it\u2019s saying?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As millions of YouTube viewers know, the \u201cHallelujah Chorus\u201d is even hotter than usual this year. The wave started with a flash-mob performance by the Opera Company of Philadelphia and hundreds of local choristers. Dressed as shoppers, they sang the best-known anthem from George F. Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d oratorio at noon in the downtown Philadelphia Macy\u2019s, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[206,280,550,578,666,798],"class_list":["post-2136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-godbeat","tag-christmas","tag-culture-wars","tag-messiah","tag-music","tag-pop-culture","tag-shopping-malls"],"yoast_head":"\nHallelujah, saith the masses<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As millions of YouTube viewers know, the "Hallelujah Chorus" is even hotter than usual this year. The wave started with a flash-mob performance by the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hallelujah, saith the masses\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As millions of YouTube viewers know, the "Hallelujah Chorus" is even hotter than usual this year. The wave started with a flash-mob performance by the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Terry Mattingly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-20T11:09:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/\",\"name\":\"Hallelujah, saith the masses\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-12-20T11:09:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-12-20T11:09:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1\"},\"description\":\"As millions of YouTube viewers know, the \\\"Hallelujah Chorus\\\" is even hotter than usual this year. The wave started with a flash-mob performance by the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Hallelujah, saith the masses\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/\",\"name\":\"Terry Mattingly\",\"description\":\"On Religion\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1\",\"name\":\"tmatt\",\"description\":\"Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Universal Syndicate.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/author\/tmatt\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hallelujah, saith the masses","description":"As millions of YouTube viewers know, the \"Hallelujah Chorus\" is even hotter than usual this year. The wave started with a flash-mob performance by the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hallelujah, saith the masses","og_description":"As millions of YouTube viewers know, the \"Hallelujah Chorus\" is even hotter than usual this year. The wave started with a flash-mob performance by the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/","og_site_name":"Terry Mattingly","article_published_time":"2010-12-20T11:09:02+00:00","author":"tmatt","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"tmatt","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/","name":"Hallelujah, saith the masses","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-12-20T11:09:02+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-20T11:09:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1"},"description":"As millions of YouTube viewers know, the \"Hallelujah Chorus\" is even hotter than usual this year. The wave started with a flash-mob performance by the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/12\/hallelujah-saith-the-masses\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hallelujah, saith the masses"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/","name":"Terry Mattingly","description":"On Religion","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1","name":"tmatt","description":"Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Universal Syndicate.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/author\/tmatt\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}