The Monmouth Civic Chorus
Dr. Mark Shapiro, Artistic Director
Close to Perfect, Close to Home

A NOTE FROM THE CONDUCTOR

Surprise: I never tire of Handel’s Messiah. By now I have conducted it many times. When we have decided to program it again, I occasionally worry that I won’t enjoy rehearsing it anymore, or that listeners won’t be inclined to hear it afresh. These concerns evaporate from the moment we set to work on it. As soon as I hear the first chords, I am completely won over by the music’s radiant beauty, its expressive range, its technical excellence, and its ineffable rightness for the voices and instruments, perhaps a by-product of its famously compressed period of composition (three weeks). As we make our way through the choruses, and as I work in my studio with the soloists, I have the privilege of being, again and again, astonished by new ideas. I might discover a more fluent way to shape a phrase, or come to the realization that a chorus that I thought should be bitter could be tender. Sitting at the piano, I might be quietly astounded as the interpretation or vocal color of a new soloist discloses unexpected truths and possibilities about a recitative or aria I have known for decades.

I am continually reminded that Handel was first and foremost a man of the theater. In both his oratorios and his operas, he wanted above all to tell a story, to put onto the stage authentically human characters that live and breathe, and whose emotions we immediately recognize and care about. The chorus and soloists lack names, but they are fully realized characters, each of whom traces a dramatic arc. The title Messiah might lead us to think that its narrative purpose is reenactment, to retell a familiar story about a well-known religious figure. It isn’t, exactly. Rather, it is about the spiritual journey – the before, during and after – of a people to whom Something Extraordinary happens. The music unfolds this drama in an absolutely riveting way, carrying the choral persona – which is, after all, a proxy for you the audience as well as for us the performers, for each and for all of us, singly and collectively – from a place of light innocence and fearful ignorance through episodes of discovery, conflict, tragedy, resolution and transcendence. Its harmonic, rhythmic and textural variety, its sheer power of expression, never flag. At the very moment that our own country contemplates a difficult historical choice, the overture, with its anxious portrayal of nations confusedly at war, is a mirror. We hear it, and know it is of our own time and place. The truism holds: everything old is new again.

--Mark Shapiro