Picture this
torn to bits,
its spine showing
shiny glue no
longer holding paper
to itself.
That’s UD‘s much-fussed-with
Schirmer’s edition of Handel’s Messiah.
It sits here on my desk
at the moment, next to
the equally shabby
Vintage Giant Ulysses
(I teach from the
controversial Gabler edition —
— not because I have a
position on the quality
of the edition, but because
it’s got larger, easier to read
pages than the Vintage.),
and next to the score
and the book is of course
a cup of tea.
**************************
Last night Gail, my cabbie friend,
drove me to the Landon School —
a private school for boys in ‘thesda.
(UD wrote about the
cheating scandal at Landon a few years back.)
***************************
A grad student of Mr UD‘s gave
him this thank you card a few weeks ago:
(She wrote that her dissertation
scared her every day, but Mr. UD
made it bearable… something like
that…)
UD found herself thinking about this
little saying as she took her
seat in the teeny soprano section (you
can’t run; you can’t hide) at the rear of
the General Music room.
To get there, you walk through the
cafeteria, its walls lined with vintage
photos of Landon sports teams.
You know how you can know something
and not know it? If you know what I mean?
UD‘s been singing and playing Messiah
since she was knee-high to grasshopper.
But does she really know it? Does she
know that all the Hallelujahs on page 203
are Ds? Hasn’t she thought for years that
some of them were DDGF?
Hasn’t she figured she can more or less do the runs
on His Yoke is Easy, and his Burthen is Light?
(The first piece on this YouTube is earlier music from which
Handel took the tune to His Yoke.)
Who knew that she absolutely totally cannot?
Still, she was game, and she sang out.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Next rehearsal, next Wednesday.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:58AM
[…] She’s done plenty of singalong Messiahs at the Kennedy Center (The night I brought my mother along to this event has become one of my best memories.), and has sung bits of the thing in school and church choirs, but she’s never been in a big actual chorus that sings the thing through (not all of it, but a lot of it) with soloists and orchestra and all. She’s already described her first rehearsal. […]
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:48PM
[…] for me. Huguely comes from an old Bethesda family; he went to school at Landon, the place where I rehearsed Handel’s Messiah last […]