I thought to continue the series I would take a trip down my own personal memory lane.
There was an annual tradition at Wappingers, which in reality was a bit out of season. But, I'm seasonally confused, so who I was I to argue? Anyway, from the very start of my family's attending church, every year on the day of the Sr. Choir cantata, for the end of the service as a sung benediction, we always sang Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." Everyone from the congregation was invited to go up and sing and I have such great memories of this time.
Even before I started singing with the Sr. Choir, I went up to be part of this. The first time because I think someone encouraged me to go up. But times after that I went up because it was such a fun thing to do. A lot of people just went up to sing, not because they sang in professional groups but because it was a time of fellowship through music. Some people who are purists may think it is terrible to get a bunch of people together who hadn't practiced the song together to sing it. But, you know, "Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!" - Psalm 150:6 (NRSV)
The trick was having whoever was playing the song play it at the right tempo so that the song didn't start to drag. This was easier to do on the piano, but with so many people at times singing, it was hard to hear the music. The organ was louder, but you had to be able to play the song slightly faster than you thought was appropriate because there was a bit of a delay between the keys being played and the sound coming out of the pipes. I always preferred the organ because it sounded better, but that was where the song got draggy depending on who was playing.
However, over time, this tradition faded away. At first the choir got smaller. And then the people willing to come up to sing got smaller. Then the choir stopped doing cantatas and the tradition faded away. It is kind of hard to sing that song without having some representation of all 4 parts at the same time.
Though there is a bit of sadness, I prefer to remember all the good times associated with the song. As a kid, it was one of my earliest forays into reading music written for 4 parts at the same time, plus accompaniment. It was an early appreciation for classical music and Handel's Messiah as a whole. It was a fun time singing with so many different people in church, of all ages. It helped when we sang it one year in high school chorus because I had sung it with choir so many times I already had it memorized. (But it was because of high school chorus I learned easier ways to sing the words which I continued to use in church - Thanks Polly!!) I found over time I liked to bounce back and forth between the soprano and alto parts. It became one of the first songs I sang lots of high notes and learned I could do that (before I broke my voice, which I am working on restoring).
Maybe the fact that we let such a tradition fade as it did was a sign of things to come. Or maybe it was just a sign of change. The memories I have, amazingly, do not make me sad. But they have been coming back as I have been listening to more and more of that type of music. Plus PUMC's version that was used for an Easter service is on my "Listening Videos" playlist on YouTube, so I've been hearing it often.
Stay tuned...next week I think I'll talk about Happy Memories with singing songs that weren't in English.
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| Best Song Ever - The Last Congregationally Song Sung at WUMC in March, 2020 |
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