I love Handel’s Messiah. I play it – and especially the pre-Nativity portions – this time of year. It is so much better than the Holiday schlock that they play on the radio. Every year, we used to sing it, 
complete with pit orchestra. In Charlottesville, there is a sing a long where everyone who wants sings it. That’s awesome.
I think it was divinely inspired. I love that it was written by a believing Christian.
Here’s a controversial thought: I even love it more than some of the Orthodox music I have. Why?
Not just because it is beautiful, but because when I listen to it in my car or whatever, I am listening in the right context. No, it’s not perfect, ideally I would be listening live. But it is meant as pious entertainment. It was never written for worship. So much of the Orthodox music available on iTunes etc. is recordings of liturgical music. This always seems a bit odd to me. Like browsing magazines to look at the kind of food I really like to eat. Akathists (such as those sung by Eikona) are a bit different as they can be done as private devotions, but listening to liturgies as entertainment… it’s a bit odd.
More-so when they are composed by non-believers. Are they beautiful? Of course. Are the words meaningful? Of course. But its a sort of parody of the thing I love most. I can enjoy it, but I cannot enter enter fully into the enjoyment the music and words are really meant to provide because the context is missing.
Handel’s Messiah is different. I can enter completely into the experience. It was made for this very purpose. And it was made very well.
