Instruments of Worship
The Instruments of Worship Podcast, hosted by Casey Rinkenberger, is dedicated to encouraging and equipping classical musicians to lift high the name of Jesus with their instruments and their lives. Tune in every Monday for a new episode!
Instruments of Worship
Handel’s Messiah: Faith, Excellence, and Community with Phil Witzig | Ep. 32
Handel’s Messiah is one of the most iconic and impactful works of music ever written. With lyrics drawn straight from Scripture and set to breathtakingly beautiful music, it’s no wonder this masterpiece continues to inspire generations. Today, I’m joined by Phil Witzig, who conducts and leads the Morton Community Chorus & Orchestra in their annual performance of Messiah. We talk about pursuing excellence within a community ensemble, Handel’s faith and backstory, the lasting impact of Messiah today, and so much more. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to experience a live performance of Messiah near you this Christmas season!
For details regarding the Morton Community Chorus & Orchestra's performance of Messiah, on November 23rd, click here.
Discussion Questions - Try discussing on your own or with a friend in our Facebook Discussion Group
- Has there ever been a time in your life where you found yourself overwhelmed by a situation you were in? Or found yourself in a situation where you bit off more than you could chew?
- Have you ever imagined yourself “crashing and burning” in a performance? Why is it important to trust the Lord in those circumstances?
- Do you ever find yourself playing your instrument just to get a check? Why is it important to still love what you do and have fun doing it?
- How could we be more prayerful about our performances and why is that important?
- Did you learn anything new about Handel?
- How were you encouraged by today’s episode?
Thanks so much for listening! Make sure to check back every Monday for a new episode!
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Hi friends, my name is Casey Ringerberg. I'm so excited to welcome you to the Instruments of Worship Podcast. This is a podcast dedicated to encouraging and equipping classical musicians to attend the name of Jesus with their instruments, but also their lives. Today I am so excited to introduce you to the wonderful Phil Winsit. Phil is the member of my community. Phil is to hear from him today how he synthesizes the person's experiments of the community horse. Also learning from him more about Handel and Handel's infamous messiah. I guarantee you will not want to miss today's episode of the Instrument Subversion Podcast. So let's get into it. Alright, well, hi Phil. Thank you so much for being willing to come on the show today.
SPEAKER_02:That's a pleasure. Great to be here.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Well, I would love to start and just hear a little bit more about you. Can you share who you are and what you do in this season of life?
SPEAKER_02:So I am um, I would call a lay musician. Um I'm not a professional. Uh so I work, I still work. I'm 62 years old. I've worked uh coming up on 30 years this month uh at Cool Insurance in Morden. That's K-U-H-L. And uh so yeah, I've been uh always in the IT, uh IT operations area of things, and doing music on the side. And I have a wife and family that I've just celebrated our 40th. Uh three beautiful girls, uh two biological, one adopted, and ten grandkids.
SPEAKER_03:So that's awesome. Congratulations.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I I'll get into more of your music story a little later, but would you just first mind telling us a little bit about your testimony and when you first came to know the Lord as your Savior?
SPEAKER_02:I'd love to. So I don't have a very exciting one. I listened to Dave uh Getz's a little while back, and he said the same thing. My my testimony isn't very exciting. Um but uh every every testimony really is exciting when the Lord saves somebody. But I grew up in a Christian home. I grew up in um a home where the word was taught and and modeled, and and I emphasize that my parents were wonderful believers that modeled what it is to be uh true Christians. Uh we had a family of six, and uh, but we were taught the word, and when I got to just just before my freshman year of high school, I felt the uh tug of the Lord calling me to make a personal commitment to Christ. And so I asked Christ into my heart and uh repented for my sins and uh was baptized, and um so I've lived uh a wonderful life. I haven't always uh lived up to the standards uh God wants for us, um, but God has has been patient with me throughout life, and uh and I've learned a lot through the years, and uh and and my relationship with Christ has deepened over the years. It's wonderful.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, that process of sanctification throughout life.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So then we'll just transition to more of the music side of your life. I'd love to hear that part of your story of when did music come into your life, and just what's what's been your musical journey?
SPEAKER_02:Well, how far back do you want to go? I won't I won't bore you too much with no I grew up in a very musical family. My mom uh I used to s we used to joke that she was an opera singer. Um she wasn't, but she would sing she was always singing and singing hymns and knew the words to songs, and she was always singing. And my dad was uh a uh original member of a 16-member men's group that started in 1948. And so he was always singing, and uh of course I grew up in a church where a cappella singing in church was was uh very important, and um so I I you know sang a lot in church and and in Sunday school and all that kind of thing. Uh but my interest as a young boy was to play the drums, believe it or not. I loved percussion. Okay I I just was crazy about drumming, and I banged on everything. And uh we lived kind of close by the high school, and whenever whenever the high school band would be out practicing marching, you know, in marching season, man, when I was a little kid, I was marching right along the drum line, just like dreaming of one day being in that end uh so anyway, I um ended up playing the uh drums uh percussion in my uh fifth grade band in sixth grade and then junior. I and then as a freshman um went through marching season, and then uh I won't go into the details of why, but I did I switched, I made a major switch to uh chorus. So thus started my life in uh singing, and and and I loved that as much as anything. Um I poured my heart into that, had a wonderful choral teacher in high school, and uh ended up singing in the madrigals and going two years to Allstate. Loved that. Um But my family background was the clothing business, and so my my brother and cousin and my dad and uncle, we were all in the clothing business. And so I thought that that's what I should do. I I don't know, for whatever reason, I didn't think music was like a pr an option for me as a as a professional musician, but so I I uh went to college studying business, but I always wanted to sing. So, like at ICC, I sang with the ICC uh chamber singers and the Philharmonic Corral, and then when I went to ISU, thought, well, I'll audition for the um uh ISU uh concert choir. I really, really wanted to sing with the ISU madrigals. That was like the premier group of ISU. But I'm like, there's no possible way. I don't, you know, I'm not most of the people in the madrigal group at ISU, number one, they were voice majors, and number two, many of them were graduate voice majors. And here I was a business major, non, you know, non-voice major. So I tried out for the concert choir, and before I even had an answer, I got a call from Dr. Farrell at ISU that said, Hey, uh, I was discussing the tenors who tried out for the concert choir uh to see if there might be a tenor that he could recommend to sing with uh because they they needed one more tenor for that year. So he asked me to sing. And so I I actually had an opportunity to sing with the ISU Madrigals, which was unbelievable. To say I was the least of that group is an understatement. I mean, these people were true musicians and wonderful great technique, and I felt like I was barely treading water when they handed me the packet of music that I had to learn.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:But it was a great experience because I, you know, when you sing with or or play or do anything with people that are better than you, like way better, you know, it it brings you up. And so that was a great experience. I ended up getting to tour Europe with them following summer. And then uh I graduated and uh married and started having a family, and but I still wanted to sing, you know, something more professionally, so I ended up I I f had fallen in love with opera in high school, believe it or not. Okay. Um, especially Luciana Pavarotti was kind of a poster child for opera back in the day.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:You know, this this unbelievable. I think it was the chorus teacher who played him singing an aria from some opera in class. And he was hitting these high C's just full voice, and I'm like. Whoa! I had yeah, I had never been exposed to opera. And I'm like, that is incredible that a person can even do that kind of thing. And I didn't I didn't even know the voice could do that. I was quite fascinated by it, and I loved music, any any kind of music, but you know, and it was beautiful music, and I'm like, wow. Anyway, yeah, I uh ended up singing with the Peoria Civic Opera Company, which believe it or not, there was a professional opera company in Peoria in the 80s and early 90s, maybe late 70s, I think it was about 20 years or so. I sang in the chorus, I sang in six different operas on the stage of the Peoria Civic Center Theater. It was fully set operas, orchestra, uh professional uh lead singers from all over the world. And that was a formative experience for me. I, you know, getting to see how a production was put together, how it was rehearsed. I loved to go down in the orchestra pit between times and just watch the conductor and how he would work with a soloist, you know, like all the all the different things that a soloist tend to do, you know, and just being able to follow that and conduct it well. And um I loved loved that. Um, but you know, life happened and I got very busy and I I couldn't and and then they folded anyway, so we the uh Peoria Civic Opera Company hasn't been around for a long time. But uh um and then I s actually started singing with the uh morning community chorus in the Messiah. I did a number of years of that, and then much later I sang uh with the Furious Civic Corral. So that's my kind of my musical background, my conducting background is all through those years I loved. I loved to watch conductors. My first band director, Rudy Jungst, was a terrific, uh, very animated conductor, and I loved his style. He was very exciting to watch. And I remember in Junior High, he asked me once, would anybody like to conduct? I'm like, I would come up and you know, and so I went up and I forget what piece it was, you know, and okay, here's the baton, you know, give it give it a shot. And when it was over, I thought I had, you know, I had done pretty good. And he he goes, Well, but you didn't have any pattern at all.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm like, pattern? I didn't know that was a pattern. I'm thinking, what pattern do you have? You know, and I wasn't really paying attention, you know, that there there is actually a little bit of a pattern now. Conductors, especially at his age, they take a lot of liberties sometimes with pattern. Uh sometimes the older they get, the less pattern they have. But but generally, there is a pattern that you need to learn. And he was, you know, he he wasn't exactly um real complimentary. I was I was kind of hurt. But anyway, I always had a a love of conducting, and I think when I was mid-high school, I I was asked to s to direct the uh choir, uh the little kids choir at church. And so I started doing that, you know, cut your teeth on little kids and you know, just how to move your arms and all that kind of stuff. And then I was asked to do the junior high kids and then high school choir. And I'm talking about at church.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And then later I was uh asked to do our um church mixed choir, and then later the mortandair is the one that my dad had sung in for all those years, and we're still singing in. And I ended up directing the Morton Airs for 34 years until just 2022. We we uh uh folded that group, unfortunately. But um but I did that, and I uh so I've done a lots and lots of church conducting. Uh so that's that's kind of my musical background. I've talked a lot. I'll let you guys more.
SPEAKER_03:No, I love it, and I think it's just so encouraging to hear. I mean, your story is unique that you technically didn't go to school to study music, but you're an example of how you can still have this great love of music and it's still be a really big part of your life, even if you don't study it professionally per se. I mean, you've done about everything you could do in the area for, you know, the voice. And um, I just hope that encourages somebody that maybe they're on the fence. Do I go study music? Should I not? You know, not sure where the Lord's leading yet, but it is a cool witness that you don't have to have a performance degree or XYZ to still have some really cool musical opportunities. And I love just hearing your love of music that sometimes you go and you get a music degree, but you sometimes that squashes the love, you know, and just to hear what you have to say about loving it, and um, it's so evident in all that you do, still today with music. So thanks for sharing about that. Yeah. I would love to transition then. You talked about how you learned to conduct kind of just over time, but then how did you come to conduct the Morton Community Course, specifically the Messiah, and what did that look like?
SPEAKER_02:So uh one of the conductors of the Morton Community Course, which has been doing Messiah for upwards of 75 years now, Diane Simmons, wonderful Christian lady, uh, attends Grace Church in Morton, still very vibrant. I'm amazed how well she's doing still. Um I think she's in her 80s, and it's just amazing how she doesn't look a whole lot different than she did years ago. Wow. Um, but she directed the Morton Community Chorus, Messiah, for I kid you not, I think almost 45 years. Wow. And uh so I sang under her for a long time. And um one of the things that our Morton, I attend the Morton Apostolic Christian Church, and we for almost 30 years, we did a an every two-year, we called it a benefit dinner, was a fundraiser for charity. And the format was that we would have a really, really nice dinner. I mean, really nice dinner, and um a choir program. And so for the choir, we would open it up to all the different groups and and people that like to sing in our church, and we we always had a um an amazing choir, amazing choir. And we did that every two years, and it was kind of a special event, and and Diane Simmons attended with a few of her friends back in about 2009 or 11 or something something in that range. Apparently, apparently she liked what I was doing because uh she had been doing it for so long and she wanted to retire. And she didn't want to she didn't want to see the Handel's Messiah fall, you know, go away. She wanted to find somebody who would take it over and you know keep going. And after seeing me conduct, she uh called me one evening and said, I'd like to talk to you about perhaps taking over the messiah. And so we set up a time, we discussed it, and now understand that I had sung in Messiah uh many times, and I knew the tenor line. I could almost do it by heart, but that's the only part I knew. Yeah. I I knew it only from the tenor line perspective. But I had a I had a couple recordings of Messiah, loved it, listened to it all the time. So I, you know, I'm you know I'm very familiar with Messiah. And when she asked, you know, I'm thinking to myself, wow, now that's a whole nother level. Conducting. It's not just simple church music, it's it's uh, you know, one of the great classics of all time. And I'm I I I knew it was was would be difficult, but I as I was thinking through it and praying about it, I thought, well, I I think that I could do it. It would take a lot of work. I know it's gonna be a lot of work, but I th I think I can do it. When she called me, it was n uh I don't forget what time of the year it was, but it was not in my mind it was not nearly enough lead time to prepare. I will do it, but I I want to I want a year. I want to work on this. She gave me a year. I went into it thinking this is gonna be hard, but I worked my tail off trying to figure out how to conduct those pieces. And strangely, I thought I was doing pretty good. I was kind of patting myself on the back. And I got to the first rehearsal of the choir, and midway through the choir, somebody says, Hey, I noticed you're giving all the tenors their cues. Would you mind giving the altos their cues? And and one of the bassists says, Yeah, I'd us either, we we'd like our cues too, you know. And I'm standing there going, yeah, I'll I'll see if I can do that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And throughout the rest of the rehearsal, I'm thinking, I I don't know where those, I mean, I have not practiced. I I realized what I had been practicing was the tender line.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And I went home, I was like knocked onto my cans. I I thought, what have I gotten myself into? This is and I started trying to just step back and learn how to conduct it, not from the tenor line perspective, but from the whole piece, including the orchestra and the and I I just I struggled and I struggled, and I and those cues, you the the parts come in on every different count. So, you know, not on count one and three, but on count two and four, and you know, on Hondel, it was very complicated, you know, cues to give. And trying to figure out and and not mess up my hands and how I was doing it. I would I I was struggling so mightily, it was not funny. And as the Messiah approached, I got more and more nervous and more and more nervous. To the point where, I mean, I was just working myself to a bone trying to figure out how to move my hands in a way that would that I wouldn't mess up, and I just had these visions. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna crash and burn. In the middle of some chorus, I'm gonna go, Altos, and it's not gonna be the right beat, and the whole thing is gonna come to a halt because of me. And it just I I can't tell you. I I was praying, and I had people praying for me, but I I I worked myself so hard, and I got literally physically ill. Physically ill. I was not sleeping well. And the night before the concert, I don't I don't even know if I slept at any at all. I was just I was fit to be tired, my nerves were terrible. I got up in the morning and I was trying one more time to try to figure out how to do these courses, and it wasn't coming, and I was making mistake after mistake, and I was just petrified. But I took up to the podium a list of all the people that were praying for me. And I just remember thinking to myself, I I gotta let go and let God do this. And that first performance was absolutely it it was it was incredible. To this day, and I kid you not, if if I make a mistake when I'm conducting and I make plenty, I know it. And it it's just like a knife, you know. I don't remember making a single mistake that first time. And it is the only time that I've ever conducted it, in my understanding, without having made any mistakes. Now, I will give you at the at the time the orchestra was only accompanying the choruses. I don't know if you remember that. I think twenty fourteen or fifteen is when we transitioned to doing all the arias and recits with orchestra. Prior to that it was just pianos accompaniment, and I didn't have to do anything on the arias. So I just conducted the courses. I so I give you that. I only was that first year I was only conducting the courses, but the courses are the most challenging. And uh God just took over. It was it I I it was amazing. God, God did a an unbelievable work in that room, and I I all praise be to God.
SPEAKER_03:Totally. Wow, that is such a cool story. So thanks for sharing that, and I think you are in good company because I think pretty much every musician knows the the fear of crashing and burning, and that is something that we is not foreign to us. Our imagination can just really spiral, and um and we really need to trust the Lord with those situations. I would love if we just kind of talked about the community chorus now and what that looks like. Um, my first question would be have you ever really struggled filling the choir? Could I because I could imagine that a lot of community choirs around the world just maybe even struggle. Like people are so busy these days, you know, finding interest, people who want to be involved. Because from an outside perspective, can you tell how big it is? It's it feels huge.
SPEAKER_02:We have enough seats for 96 on stage of Grace Church. This sounds strange. In more recent years, I have overbooked the numbers because it just it's it's it just happens. People have to cancel for one reason or another. I can't say just a couple people said they uh there somebody in their families uh announced they're getting married on that day, and now they're out. So I mean we I started out with 106 this year and we're down at 97. So it's right about where we need to be. When I first took over, the choir size was upper sixties, low seventies, and the average age was quite high. They were wonderful singers, but they were uh the average age was older. And uh I was thinking in my mind, you know, that's not a sustainable model if you can't get younger people to sing. Um but you know, I was Lord, this is yours. This is yours. So I I committed it to God and uh and we we bumped along a little bit with uh you know, a little bit of increase here and there, but but not too much. Um still the average age was fairly old. But I think people are attracted to amazing performances, and God has been working. And when people come to a performance that that touches their heart in some way, and they're and they go away going, Wow, that was amazing. God be praised. They're like, I'd like to be a part of that. And so little by little people started saying, I'd like to sing. Do you you know, how do you get into this group? I'm like, Well, it's very difficult. You gotta prepare a solo. No, actually, we've never done auditions.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Never done it done done auditions. Uh uh, it just has been word of mouth. And um people that love that kind of music, and uh there is not many opportunities to sing that kind of music anymore. So if you love that kind of music and you've if you've attended a performance that's pretty good, they they they started coming to me and saying, Can we sing? And I'd love to have you sing, I'd love to have you sing. Um so the size of the choir started building, and Casey, one of the most amazing things is that I thought when I first started, again, is this is is this something that could go on? I mean, are there young people who still want to do this kind of music? I have more young people than I've ever had in the choir, including two of my grandsons, two daughters, two of my grandsons, and the one grandson is a most amazing boy soprano. And I'm telling you, he could sing with the best of them.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Um, he has beautiful soprano voice, and he fell in love with Messiah. Oh, his mother, Larissa, my daughter, who's the soloist this year, yeah, by the way, uh was you know, learning and listening, you know. I always tell people, hey, if you want to really learn Messiah, listen to it. A good recording, just listen to it over and over. That'll help more than anything. And he fell in love. Same with my other grandson. He's now 14, but he's singing in his third year. He sang alto, then tenor, this year he's singing bass. So, um I I've had an amazing number of young people want to sing, and it just it just warms my heart that yeah. It it's music that if you give kids a chance, expose them to it. Not everybody will like it, I understand that. But if you if you expose kids to great music of any kind, some of them really like it and take to it, and Messiah's a great example. It a lot of people, you know, think, well, that's opera music or you know, operatic or whatever, that's not gonna appeal to you know, anybody at 70 seven seventy plus. And it's not true. It's not true. So I have near a wonderful influx of singers. I've had uh we have a number of people from out of state that have asked. To sing and and I have a special arrangement with them. They have to practice on their own and commit that they are truly gonna work on it and learn music. And and if they do that, and if they can do that and come to two rehearsals, that's the deal. Preferably the last Monday night rehearsal where we go through every one and then the dress rehearsal the day before. I'll let you sing. Wow. And we've done that for a number of years now, and they are amazing. The people that come from out of state, they they absolutely love to sing, want to sing, put the time in, and they they contribute well to the choir.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And uh so it's amazing. I've got people from all over.
SPEAKER_03:That's incredible. Yeah, it really sounds like the Lord is is using this community performance of Handel's Messiah. And I know that, as you know, my mom has even had students where it's just like their dream of all dreams to be able to play in Messiah one day or even sing in the choir. And to for you to give them the opportunity to sing is just incredible. And I love because even as somebody who plays in it, it's just so cool that it's so multi-generational, people from all different sorts of churches, like it's just such a special thing to be a part of, and that's what keeps bringing people back year after year. And I it's just so exciting to think that this will probably go on for years because it's just it's drawing all different ages of people, and that's just really exciting. So thanks for your all your efforts in that. And I'm honestly shocked to hear that you don't have auditions because my mom always says that the Morton Community Course has the heart and soul of a community group, which is so special, but also really the excellence of a near professional group. And I would love to hear of how did you take a community course and yet how can someone still strive for excellence? And I just think it's so cool that you you want everybody to come, everybody's welcome, but you're still gonna strive for excellence together. So, what how do you do that?
SPEAKER_02:That's a that's a great question. Um I I I do love your mom's comment that the the community course is a community group, so it has the heart and soul of the community group, um, which means that people come because they love to sing. You know, it's not they're not there to get a paycheck, whatever.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I've s I love listening to professionals, singers, players. Um there's a place for all kinds of things in this world. But the community a community group that uh is dedicated because they love it. I I I don't ask for uh statements of faith or anything like that. But I believe most, if n if not all of the singers are Christians, so but i if they're not all the better. I love it. It's like praise God. But people love to sing. Uh they're dedicated to the music, they're dedicated to the messaging. We are bathing this thing in prayer. We we ask God to bless it, to bless the soloists, to bless the orchestra, the the organists, the singers, th that God's spirit uh will be felt before before we uh go uh in to sing, you know, before the processional, we gather for prayer. And uh it's it is a community group, but I I have thus far not been I've not been asked by anybody to not share my faith and my belief. And uh I I freely uh express myself and my faith through our rehearsals, and I have been so blessed to be able to sing under great conductors. I have had the joy of singing under some of the amazing uh conductors, and all all those things have helped me to learn, at least to strive, conduct in a way that's that is uh not only high quality, but also inspirational.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I think we've all been under conductors where they weren't so inspirational, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:But the ones that do really stand out, you know, people sing and play under certain conductors, and and that's what I strive to do. I I pray every rehearsal. I last Monday night my grandson and I came up early and said, come on, let's go for the pray. Let's let's uh let's go to the back room and uh and pray. So uh every rehearsal I I approach with prayer asking God to give me wisdom and understanding and uh words of uh grace and uh encouragement.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it really sounds like if you have a group that really loves it, then they're gonna be willing to work hard, and but it also takes somebody who's willing to push them and inspire them to even a whole other level. And it really, I I think you do that, Phil, wonderfully. And you even give them resources though, too. I'll link in the description your your website where you give different things they can listen to and different vocal warmups and different videos with technique things, like just how you can inspire them to work hard and to strive for excellence on their own, and then you spearheading that when there is a group. That's just it's a really cool thing. And again, there's nothing more special when you have a group of musicians, whether professional or amateurs, who love what they're doing and are under the leadership of someone who also loves what they're doing, and um all to the glory of God and soaked in prayer. So I love just how you said that. I would love to talk about just kind of some of the practical aspects of putting this show on. Um, so first I'd love to know do you charge for tickets? Do you have to fund race throughout the year? What does that look like?
SPEAKER_02:We have always throughout all the years been uh donation basis uh free will offering. Um in the old years, the free will offering was enough to cover all of our expenses. In the more recent years, um, not so much, uh mostly because of the use of professional soloists. For most of the years, uh we used uh non-professional soloists, just people from the choir, and they did wonderful, really. Uh but when I took over, I I did it a couple years with uh uh you know the typical local people, and then uh decided to uh to see if I could up the ante a bit.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And get people that had more vocal training to at least for the solo parts. And you know, you gotta pay people uh if they're singing professionally. And of course, the orchestra, uh, you know, they're they're professional people who they're that's their part of their income, if not their whole income. So uh over the years uh expenses have kind of risen quite a bit dramatically, actually. Um so the the free will offering only really covers about half of our costs. Along with that, I knew I would have to probably do some fundraising, and so we uh started asking for either uh individual donors or uh businesses to come alongside and and do a sponsorship. And that that has uh filled in the gap of the expenses to do that. So I'm very thankful to have a uh a nice group of businesses and individual individuals that that uh are contributing more than the average person that might, you know, throw five bucks in the can or something.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yes, totally got it. Okay, so I would love now to transition and talk a little bit more specifically about Handel. Do you know much about his background? Do you mind sharing a little bit about that with us?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so Handel was born in 1685, the same year that Bach and uh uh Scarlatti was born. Three famous composers, all born in 1685. But as they came into composing, uh they were all three of them were considered in the high Baroque period. The Baroque period is roughly from 1600 to 1750. Handel was born in Germany. He was he was a German citizen, um, grew up uh as most people in German, or many, I should say, uh, as a Lutheran. Obviously, he was as a young man, uh, everybody found that he was amazingly talented, and he began uh playing uh piano or the not the piano, but the harpsichord or whatever you know keyboard they had at the time. And uh and then composing. And anyway, he went on to study in Italy for eight years, and then uh was called to uh England, to come to England. He he had made it quite a name for himself, writing uh operas, believe it or not, in the uh genre that we call today opera seria or serious opera. That was a particular style of opera that was uh famous in that day. And he had made him a uh a name for himself in Italy as a as a pr very good composer, and he was invited to come to London to write operas for the uh Royal Operas. And so he did. And he moved to England, he never left. He spent he was in his early twenties, he and he died, and when he was 74, he never left England. He he wrote uh 42 operas in that same opera series style. Initially his he was like a rock star, everybody loved everything he did. Um, but kind of he had starting to have a kind of a midlife crisis as people started to kind of tire of that that genre of of uh Italian opera, had a very strict form. One of its principal uh things in in opera seria is called the decapo aria, which is A, B, A. So you you sing A, you do a B section, and then you repeat the A section from the top or from the beginning. So just like the word DC. Um and and it's they tend to be very long opera arias because of that. But he was writing in that style. People began to kind of tire from it, and so that's when he started to turn very slowly, almost kicking and screaming, to writing oratorio, which was A done typically in English. And the the English people were begging him to write music in English. They were like, why don't you write something in English so we can understand? And he he s for a long time steadfastly refused. No, Italian uh is the the language for the voice. And he was very stubborn. D didn't want to move to any other language, certainly not German. But he came kind of kicking and screaming to writing music um in English, but uh the the oratoria gave him the excuse to do that because that was kind of for some reason that that was okay. But he wrote a couple oratorios, and uh they were amazingly successful. So all the while his operas were waning in popularity, he wrote an oratoria called Esther. That was based on the biblical story of Esther, and then he wrote another another another couple, uh I forget Saul or Samson or something like that, and and they they were immensely successful. But and he was no dummy, he was he was making his money based on the music that and the popularity and people coming to his concerts, right? But he really, really wanted to hang on to opera, and his last opera, 42nd, an opera by the name of Daitamea. I'm sure you've heard of that. I'm kidding. Nobody's ever heard of Daitamea. It closed after only two performances, after which the entire opera company, by the way, which he was part owner of, went belly up. And it was a couple years, or not a couple years, a number of months, maybe as much as a year or more before that debacle. A clergyman had come to him and said, Hey, I have an idea for an oratorio. It's based all on scripture on the subject of Messiah, and I think it would be wonderful. And he gave him these scripture verses, and Hondel looked at that and scratched his head and was like, no, no, no, I don't I don't see how this can ever make a good oratory. It has no, it has no characters, it has no plot, no no dialogue. There's no protagonists, you know. It it was not telling a story in the way that most stories are told. And he set it aside. But after his failure with Daidomea, he uh decided to go back and take a look for some reason at this set of scripture verses that he had been given. And he started thinking about it and uh decided to uh, you know, maybe this might work after all. And thus started the 24-day period that everybody talks about, that is unbelievable, where he wrote over 250,000 notes, composed them in the space of 24 days. He worked day and sometimes throughout some part of the night. Claims, by the way, to have had uh divine inspiration, which I have no doubt. I don't know, some people poo-poo that and you know. I it has the stamp of God on the music. And one musicologist said it would be difficult for anyone to to to even copy that many notes, let alone compose them. But anyway, Messiah turned out to be his most famous work, the work upon which his reputation is unshakably founded. His music never went out of the repertoire. Messiah, his water music, music for the royal fireworks, and several of his coronation anthems have never gone out of the repertoire. We can't even say that with Bach. Box music lay dormant for nearly a century until Mendelssohn uh revived the St. Matthew Passion and almost single-handedly uh revived interest in box music. But Handel's music has never gone out of repertoire. His operas unfortunately did for almost 200 years. There was not much going on with Handel's operas, but in more recent years, in the last 50-75 years, there's been a great resurgence of interest in Handel's operas, especially Giulio Cesare or Julius Caesar, Rhoda Linda. Several of his operas that are being done now on on the stage of of the Metropolitan Opera, even great opera houses all around the world.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so his music uh is a great legacy and um amazing. Um yeah, I don't know, I'm I'm blabbing on too much.
SPEAKER_03:No, no. Is there anything you feel like you could attribute that to? Like, why has Messiah stood the test of time and still impacts people today?
SPEAKER_02:Messiah is I don't want to overplay it, but it is not one of the world's most popular classical masterpieces that have has ever been written for nothing. Both choral or orchestral. Messiah is programmed more times each year than almost any other classical work of any kind. People flock to hear it, and it's not for nothing. It is it is a work which uh Handel seemed to uh I mean in in conjunction with I think Divine Spirit uh he poured out a lifetime of of skill composing and and his his mastery of melody, which was amazing. Um he was a wonderful melodist. If anybody talks about composing, the biggest problem in composing is coming up with a meaningful melody. And Messiah has one beautiful melody after another. It's also unique in its use of the chorus, totally unique, except for one oratorio called Israel in Egypt. But other than that, Messiah has a larger role for the choir than in any of his other oratorios. Twenty grand choruses. If you did them all. No, we don't do them all, but if you did them all, there would be twenty, and they're all amazing. It's like one blockbuster after another.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Including the world's most iconic choral piece, the hallelujah chorus, which by the way is many people's favorite. It's I I love it too. It's not my personal favorite from Messiah. My mine is the worthy is the lamb.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm. Um me too.
SPEAKER_02:But Handel had a most amazing skill. He knew how to make an effect that would just thrill audiences. When he wants, he strikes like a thunderbolt. And uh it's true. The the opening chorus, the the opening bars of Worthy is a Lamb, uh, you'd think all heaven is opening to you. And audiences thrilled to that. My sister came one year, you know, and she says, I there's multiple times when I just had chills up and down my spine. That's testament to the music, the power of the music, and also we cannot forget that it's the word of God. It's that kind of music set to the word of God that makes it totally unique in the repertoire. There was never a classical work up until that time, nor has there any been since. It is literally the only major masterwork that is based solely on scripture. Not Brahm's Requiem, not Beethoven's Miso Solemnus, not Bach's cantatas, not any of his m his B minor mass or any of his passions, not one of them, not any other classical work uses strictly scripture. Now that's not to say they're not sacred, right? You know, but they're using poetry basically, set to music. Man's poetry, which is fine. Um, but it's it doesn't have the weight of scripture. When you come to Messiah, you're getting the amazing story of redemption set to music in a in an amazing masterpiece, and that's that's what brings people back.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I know it's impossible to go back and ask Handel himself, but if you had to conjecture, was all of this real to him? Like the whole story of redemption, do you think he claimed it for himself and really truly believed the words that were being spoken?
SPEAKER_02:I I believe that he did. I um that that is a great question. And that that question has been wrestled with uh by historians and um Christians alike. Handel was a very private person. He did not leave a lot of writings. He did not have a journal, like some composers. He did not do a lot of correspondence, so there's not much correspondence left. So what we know is a lot of from uh just those around him that would see and you know what what their opinion of him was. Um we we do know that he uh grew up Lutheran, and when he became a British citizen, he he he by law had to become a member of the Anglican church. But he was a faithful Anglican. He he attended. Um there's even in uh St. George's Church, I believe it's called. Um there's a badge. I I think it has his name on it because that's where he used to sit. So we know that he attended church. There's not a lot of uh anecdotal evidence to say that he was tremendously spiritual, but there's not anything either that that would say he that he was not, you know. That it it just seems to be silent on that subject. Uh we do know that in his later years, as he turned to oratorios, and oratorio, by the way, is generally, not always, but generally a religious piece because it was the roots of oratorial were uh to fill the to have something to play during Lent, when the opera house had to be sh they couldn't, they weren't allowed to do operas during Lent. But they could do oratorios, which were based on biblical themes like Esther, Samson, you know, Messiah, things like that. So he turned to to writing oratorio, and so he was very much around biblical themes, and there are a few tantalizing things that we do know that he said later in in his last days. One of them was that eight days before he passed, at the age of seventy-four in 1759, he said, I want I want to die on Good Friday. I want to die with my loving Savior. So we didn't know he said that. And and by the way, Messiah was his favorite piece also. He conducted it over thirty times in his in his life, and it came later in his so he was older when he and and he conducted it a few days before he passed, and believe it or not. Those verses um he loved Messiah. And so it's it's a tantalizing subject. God will be the judge.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, but I I have a feeling that he might I might see him on the throne someday. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yes, well, that's wonderful. All right, kind of wrapping up here, Phil. I just am wondering if there is anything that you might pull from Messiah that could encourage Christian classical musicians today.
SPEAKER_02:Well, the um the piece that comes to mind is the words to uh I Know That My Redeemer Liveth. By the way, that there's a statue of Handel in Westminster Abbey where he was buried, right next to Charles Dickens, by the way. And that statue is of him holding a copy of I Know That My Redeemer Liveth. That was one of his favorite uh arias in the piece, and is one of mine. Strangely, because it's not, I mean, a lot of people think, well, yeah, I'd I'd like one of the fast-moving, really, uh uh the trumpet shall sound or something. I I love that too, but um but the I know my redeemer liveth, taken from um Job, the book of Job, when Job was struggling through all of the problems that he had, and he said, though worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh I know that I will see God. I know he lives, and I know I'm gonna see him someday. And so take that as an encouragement as we as we minister in music, that thought of ministering to people and helping them and guiding them to the Savior. I don't know. I the music has a special place. It's a gift of God. And as professional musicians, uh I I've always been jealous of that actually.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you've certainly done a lot in the music world, and we're so thankful that you're you're willing to do the hard work and be a part of it in this area. So that's such a good reminder that um our Redeemer lives no matter what's going on in this world, and that even music can be used to point people towards the truth and towards the Lord's beauty, and um so thanks for that reminder. So, my last thing that I want to ask is if somebody wants to come and experience the Morton Community Course presentation of Handel's Messiah, can you just tell them what they need to know and where maybe they can find more information?
SPEAKER_02:So I have my own personal website, and I've dedicated a slice of that to the Morton Community Course. The address is my initials, P for Phil, J is for John, and W for Witzick, PJW dot cc. It's kind of an odd extension. It's not dot com, it's dot cc.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And so pjw.cc, if you go there, you'll see the the information on the um the concert. Um so if they come, you want to come early. Um by the way, we have a uh one of the best organists in Puria, Peter Wykert, who uh is cantor and organist over at uh Trinity Lutheran in Puria. He does a 20-minute prelude before the concert. So if you come early, get a good seat, enjoy the organ prelude, which is terrific. I I love organ. The place fills up uh pretty well. It's uh it's not completely full, but it's pretty close. So you wanna you wanna come early to get parking, and I know from year to I had one person say I couldn't find a parking spot, and I turned around. I'm like, oh no.
unknown:Oh no.
SPEAKER_02:I don't like to hear that. But come early so you can get a good parking spot and get a good seat. But yeah, it's uh Sunday, November 23rd, 2.30 p.m. at Grace Church in Morton. And I hope hope to see people there to enjoy it and experience it. If if they've never seen a live performance of Messiah, it is nothing like hearing and recording. I mean it's just you cannot hold a candle to it. So it's it's something that I think everybody should have on their bucket list to do at least once. And of course, if you see at least once, there's a good chance you might be coming back. Be coming back, but uh but you should at least do it once.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yes. Well, I'm also really looking forward to that day to be able to play and put it all together again.
SPEAKER_02:To hear Casey play.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah, no, well, it's just such a fun thing, and it's it's a great group of people, and so I'm thankful to be a part of it. So thank you so much, Phil, for being willing to take the time and share your wisdom today. I know it will bless people, and it's sure been a blessing to me.
SPEAKER_02:You bet. Great to be on.
SPEAKER_03:Well, thanks so much for spending part of your day with me today. Don't forget to ring in the Christmas season by attending a performance of Handel's Messiah near you. If you are local to Central Illinois, I hope to see you in the audience at Grace Church in Morton for another great year of Christ Exalting Music. Make sure to check the description for discussion questions that you can reflect on by yourself or with the group. We actually have a Facebook group page that you can join where we talk about these discussion questions, we answer them, and we can encourage and equip one another as we walk this road of being Christian in the classical music world. Please feel free to leave us a five star review if you like this episode, and I will see you next Monday.