{"id":61772,"date":"2018-12-25T21:12:34","date_gmt":"2018-12-25T21:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=61772"},"modified":"2018-12-25T21:45:27","modified_gmt":"2018-12-25T21:45:27","slug":"todays-contest-for-your-listening-ear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=61772","title":{"rendered":"Today&#8217;s contest for your listening ear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; sensing the sense of the season, musically, with JS Bach, GF Handel, and a special appearance by Dean Swift ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s contest is between <strong>Johann Sebastian Bach<\/strong>&#8216;s <em>Christmas Oratorio<\/em>, here performed by <strong>Michel Corboz<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YNGhskz8Kbo\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>and <strong>Georg Friedrich H\u00e4ndel<\/strong>&#8216;s <em>Messiah<\/em>, here under the baton of <strong>Sir Colin Davis<\/strong> at the Barbican, with the marvelous <strong>Sara Mingardo<\/strong> in the alto role..<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZuGSOkYWfDQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Cast your ballots, <em>faites vos jeux<\/em> &#8212; this is a win-win game.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>You knew, perhaps &#8212; I didn&#8217;t &#8212; that Dublin, the place of the first performance of <em>Messiah<\/em>, was at the time spiritually dominated by <strong>Jonathan Swift<\/strong>, Dean of St Patrick&#8217;s cathedral, and thus the commander-in-chief under God of that cathedral&#8217;s choristers? &#8212;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jonathan Swift<\/strong> of the <em>Modest Proposal<\/em> &#8220;that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled&#8221; &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>and that the said <strong>Dean Swift<\/strong> was at first unwilling to let his choristers sing in what seemed uneasily like an Opera, but later relented?<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>The child promised, delivered &#8212; despised, rejected &#8212; crucified and finally arisen in <strong>Handel<\/strong>&#8216;s magnificent music himself became, it would seem, bread broken and shared, thus to be digested spiritually by his followers.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dean Swift, Handel<\/strong> (<strong>H\u00e4ndel <\/strong>was quite British by now) &#8212; the two of them crossed staves (a pun, that, ahem) in Dublin that year, 1742 of the Common Era or Anno Domini, 16th in the reign of <strong>George II<\/strong>. The King&#8217;s Viceroy for Ireland at that date would have been <strong>William Cavendish<\/strong>, 3rd Duke of Devonshire, who was a founding governor of the Foundling Hospital in London, an establishment instituted for the &#8220;education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children&#8221; &#8212; note the echo of <strong>Dean Swift<\/strong>&#8216;s concerns, a <strong>DoubleQuote<\/strong> in history if you will. <\/p>\n<p><strong>George Frederick Handel <\/strong> conducted <em>Messiah <\/em>to great acclaim in the chapel of Foundling Hospital in 1750, and was elected a Governor the next day.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p><strong>Swift<\/strong>&#8216;s children get roasted, <strong>God<\/strong>&#8216;s child narrowly escapes death at the hands of <strong>Herod the Great<\/strong>, but the children of the Foundling Hospital not only get saved from starvation and the gutter, but are exposed to some of the European world&#8217;s most magnificent choral music. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Hallelujah!<\/strong> &#8212; if you don&#8217;t mind me saying so.<br \/>\n*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; sensing the sense of the season, musically, with JS Bach, GF Handel, and a special appearance by Dean Swift ] . Today&#8217;s contest is between Johann Sebastian Bach&#8216;s Christmas Oratorio, here performed by Michel Corboz: and Georg Friedrich H\u00e4ndel&#8216;s Messiah, here under the baton of Sir Colin Davis at the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[837,526,932,497,1735,652,1736,480,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bach","category-charles-cameron","category-children","category-christianity","category-handel","category-literature","category-messiah","category-music","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61772"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61779,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61772\/revisions\/61779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}