The Ultimate Advent Music

I tried. I really, really tried. I wanted to find a link where you could at least stream Handel's Messiah for free, but all I found were some midi files that were worse than not hearing it at all. As a consolation prize, go to beethoven.com which streams a lot of advent music this time of year. Note that the wikipedia page linked above does have downloads of ogg files for much of Messiah, but I couldn't get them to play on my computer. Stupid Windows machine. WNYC2also seems to be streaming seasonal music.

So I'm going to have to settle for a link to a CD of a fine performance of Messiah and some discussion of the work.

We normally hear Messiah in the time leading up to Christmas, but it actually consists of three parts, covering all of Christ's life - His birth, the Passion and the Resurrection. Christmas time performances tend toward pieces from the first part, obviously. Some parts of Messiah are widely played at other times. The Hallelujah chorus is often used to conclude weddings, and the soprano aria I know that my Redeemer Liveth is commonly played at funerals.

Handel wrote the entire work in the summer of 1741 in 24 days, in a burst of creative force to compose something that would capture the entire story of Jesus' life, with suitable grandeur and majesty. His valet wrote that he would often find Handel weeping silently as he wrote it, overcome by the power of the music flowing through him. The result is by far his most popular piece, and one of the greatest pieces of religious music ever composed.

I swore I wasn't going to do this, but here's a link to a midi version of the piece that is less horrendous than some I found.

So listen, and get the Christmas spirit.