What do you miss about religion?

[Jeffersons Ghost]

63. Christians claim the short time it took Handel to compose this massive amount of music is a miracle

Handel wrote the original version of Messiah in three to four weeks. Most historic accounts estimate the composer spent only 24 days writing the oratorio.

What makes this even more astounding is the sheer scale of the 259-page score. Richard Luckett, author of Handel’s Messiah: A Celebration, writes that there are some uncorrected errors or blotted out notes but remarkably few mistakes given the speed of Handel’s writing.

NPR music commentator Miles Hoffman estimates there are roughly a quarter of a million notes in Messiah. At a little more than three weeks of 10-hour days, Hoffman said that means Handel would have had to keep a continuous pace writing 15 accurate notes a minute.

In my opinion, Handel was a Jimi Hendrix type - bipolar - musical genius, who was able to remain lucid and write music without sleeping, for weeks.

Only the first third of the work was about the birth of Jesus. The second act covers the death of Jesus and the third focused on his resurrection. As such, the piece was originally conceived as a work for Easter and was premiered in the spring during the Lent season.

By the 19th century, Messiah became a regular December staple particularly in the United States. Laurence Cummings, conductor of the London Handel Orchestra, told Smithsonian Magazine that the Christmas performance custom may have partly come out of necessity.

You don't have to miss the music, which was not written as a Christmas carol originally:

In the 2014-2015 Christmas season alone, 13 out of the 22 largest American orchestras performed the piece 38 times.

The music can be found on television, radio and purchased at most music stores. There is probably renditions of the music by some of the world's greatest orchestras, accompanied by similar singers, online at youtube.com
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