Handel "The Messiah"


 Handel

The Messiah


 For Unto Us

An important part of the Christmas season for me is The Messiah, the oratorio by  George Fredrick Handel [Georg Friederich Händel].  In the 1950s I was part of the chorus in performances of The Messiah for several years with the Wilmington's Capella Club at Grace Methodist Church in front of their magnificent stained glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany. 
 
My painting above, For Unto Us, shows Handel, with an organ pipe rank halo, conducting a small chorus and instrumental ensemble,  on a gallery wrapped canvas with a baroque crest  (see this blog August 03, 2021.)

I retained my worn and annotated  Schirmer score and paid for a new replacement for the Club.  A few years later I hand rebound my copy with scrounged materials.



 The black cloth was scrap from blackout fabric in our Berkeley lab where we were doing research requiring darkroom conditions.  The framed title was assembled from the damaged paper cover of my score.  The original cover looked much like the title page.
 


 

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