Handel's Messiah

Last fall Jay Hartzler, a high school choir director who is spending a year as a Veritas volunteer in Sighisoara, started talking with a local church choir director about the possibility of putting together a choir from Sighisoara to perform selections from Handel’s Messiah. I had sung the “Hallelujah” chorus from the Messiah when I was part of my high school’s choir, and later came to appreciate the whole Messiah while I was at Eastern Nazarene College. Since Jay was looking for members for his choir, I joined in.

In February, a group of about 20 singers began to meet weekly for rehearsals, with Jay directing and his talented wife Sheri accompanying us on the piano. Since many of the choir members were not familiar with the Messiah, and since we had less than three months before our concert, so we were instructed to practice at home, watching instructional videos on YouTube. (We definitely didn’t have those when I was in high school choir!)

On Sunday evening, May 11, complete with a string quartet, trumpeters, and soloists who traveled from nearby cities in Romania, we performed 22 selections from the Messiah in the centuries-old Gothic church known as the Church on the Hill. There were over 300 in attendance. 

The "Church on the Hill" was constructed prior to the Protestant Reformation.
Since the 16th century it has been a Lutheran Church. It is today
used mostly for concerts and weddings, in addition to being a museum.

The words that Georg Friedrich Händel took from Scripture and composed into this oratorio 270 years ago tell about the birth, passion, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of God. Since our concert fell during the Easter season, my thoughts were especially concentrated on the promises of the resurrection:

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep. Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Below is a video clip of the final two selections we performed: “Worthy is the Lamb” and the “Hallelujah” chorus.