Isn’t it amazing how current events are tabbed as significant to world history, but in the long run are not? Take the year 1809. The international scene was tumultuous. Napoleon was sweeping through Austria; blood was flowing freely. Nobody cared much for babies being born, but the world was overlooking some very significant births. For example, William Gladstone was born that year. He was destined to become one of England’s finest statesmen. That same year, Alfred Tennyson was born to an obscure minister and his wife. The child would one day greatly affect the literary world in a marked manner. On the American continent Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Not far awa
Handel’s Messiah is without doubt perhaps the greatest and most powerful work of music of the life of Jesus. The first part of the oratorio is normally performed in concert halls, auditoriums, churches, and cathedrals all around the world during Christmas time. While most people know the “Hallelujah Chorus” which is only part of the Oratorio, many do not know the conditions in which Handel wrote this phenomenal work of art glorifying Jesus Christ. George Handel was born in Germany, but he left and went to Italy, back to Germany for a time, and then settled in London in the 1720’s and eventually became a British citizen. Handel had many ups and down in life in regard to his composing and his
