Messiah

Last night I sang Messiah with our town's Choral Society - a sell out concert at Reading University - and shed-loads of applause after.  The soloists were superb, the tenor especially so (but then I'm biased!)

The whole thing was emotionally interesting.  OK, I didn't get all the notes right, but that didn't cause me much shame - you can hide in a choir of 100, well, unless you're something odd like a lady tenor :o).  But there were a few folk from the Baptist Church that I tried attending for a while there.  It brought to mind how I would have been thinking even three years ago whilst singing this "magnum opus" - and, indeed, it was very long - we didn't finish until about 10:15!  In a strange way I felt it would have been easier to sing had I not lost my faith.  It was like I had to draw on emotional memories rather than actually feeling the moment.  And there is still a little part of me that wanted to simply scream out "the whole thing is just a story, a fable, something to inspire or, at worst, create fear".

But it's done, and the choir moves on to the next religious festival with lots of songs about how unworthy all humanity is.  I do wonder whether I ought to try to find a more secular music group.