Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1897-12-24
CHRISTMAS MUSIC.
We Have No Christmas OratOriO, Says
Hnrper's Weekly, and We
NceL nnA

We have a vast deal of music at Christ
mastide. and WI cannot have too much at
the joyous festival. Only at Easter are the
church choirs in such fine practice and
thrown into so fine a pother, the choirmas-
ter so anxious and autocratic. Up in the
many early English and other sorts of
steeples sweet bells are tangled in tune and
out of tune as they are not set agolnS even
in Casters spriug-warmed air. But all this
suitable singing and timely playing on
everything from Il cabinet organ TO a
carlton reminds us each year NOR decid-
edly of a lack. We need a Christmas ora
torio. We have none. We have one I'M
perfect, dearly beloved. and far from happy
substitute. ~
Each Christmas finds Handers The
Messiah brought forward. like a last
years balance. Duly and la6oriously Is
that ancient work presented. IT Is strong
people, and Il firm foundation Is under II
in the sentiment of tens OF thousands OF
people who never go TO any otnsr concert
ears that cannot tell the Prize song IN
Wagner's 'Mastersingers' from the Mar
seilla!se:" consider it the finest ana most
spiritual work ever composed
Really it Is curious that even the fringe
of self-satistied philistia will not he a nttle
more retrospective as TO The Messiah
to say nothing OF such musical. auditors as
ought to know and feel. The Messiah" Is
not particularly an %oratorio for CHRISTMAS.
Its references to the Advent are in pass
ing. 1t is really n work quite as mucn Tor
Passion Week. for Good Friday: perhaps
even more so. 1t was not composed as a
specifically ~Christmastime English oratorlo
nor speedily became quasi such . thing. 1t
does duty, therefore. as a venerable ola
makeshift. It's text is solemnly and nobiy
Biblical, but ii is full of Handlers perfectly
secular musical ideas. His saul is =
far finer ~oratorio in much The Messiah"
indeed. jigs and MARBLES and counter
marches along. full of Handelian formal
isms and of empty and old-fashioned must
cal ornament, as If the subject were quite
of the world worldly. It's really lofty and
understanding episodes do not redeem its
manner of musical u~tterance.
The birth in Bethlehem and the shep-
herds are soon left behind. and thencefor-
ward it pursues as topics a Passionistic
course. and casts doGmas and theology into
rhythms and part-writing. No. we cannot
much longer accept The Messiah" as L
and we need one badly. Mendelssohn doubt
less could have written exactly the deired
Christmas article, but the author of Eli
jah' did not live to do So Perhaps We
shall have it from one of our own American
composers. There are at least two or three
from whose recent work In the O~ratoriO
field we might look for a strong effort to
supply the long-cont.nued lack. In France.
Cesar Franck'S remarkable ChristmaStide
score is taking a high place; and there are
other aspiring modern compositions for the
occasion that should be better known here
tha they seem to be. But the Continental
it comes to English oratorio. as We wish 1t.
The contemporary British musician is duly
correct at it.. Meantime THE Messiah
sung at the halIowed and gracious time to
the most unmusical audiences of the year,
who flock to it and sit through it under a
musical misrepresentation. That error will
Only be broken by a new, really beautiful
and lofty %oratorio on the most beautiful
and lofty central theme open to a contem-
porary musicians heart and hand.