It Shall Be So

The Christmas season officially began on Saturday, December 3 at 8 p.m. Although we start Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving because that’s a box that needs to be checked as soon as possible, the season really doesn’t start until we’ve taken in a performance of Handel’s Messiah.

In years past, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Mendelssohn Choir would perform this beloved oratorio not until the third weekend in December. Oh, sure, we put the tree up a week prior and I decorated the house, sent out cards, baked cookies (back when I was actually interested in doing that), but in my heart, it wasn’t Christmas until I heard the Hallelujah Chorus. There were many years in the past 30 that Messiah was not performed at Heinz Hall, so we made do with recordings…but it just wasn’t the same.

So yesterday I purchased five dozen homemade Christmas cookies at a local church cookie walk, we put up a small tree and affixed a wreath to the bow window, and then we got dressed up and headed the five miles into downtown Jacksonville for the performance. We had perfect seats, eleven rows from the stage, right in the center. Not quite close enough to see the mezzo-soprano’s tonsils when she sang the recitatives from Luke 2, but close enough to watch the very expressive faces of the Jacksonville Symphony Chorus.

We found that we were seated next to the symphony’s development director, whose husband soft pedaled a subscription to the 2012 Masterworks series of performances. We do plan to take in another concert this spring, courtesy of two vouchers in return for bringing a toy for The Salvation Army’s Angel Tree Toy Drive.

I loved every part of Messiah, but my favorite is the final Amen Chorus, and not because it’s the end of the performance! Christmas has begun. It shall be so!