This Sunday+

Handel’s O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, is a bit unusual in that it is a hybrid aria-chorus movement, whereas all other chorus movements in Messiah are separate movements.  Perhaps Handel’s intention was to intensify the message of hope and excitement from a declamation by an “individual” to one of the “people.” Of Bach’s solo organ music for Advent, perhaps no other work is as evocative as is our Opening Organ Voluntary, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (“Come now, Savior of the heathen” or “Savior of the nations, come!”).  The slow-moving pedal line is said to depict the painful steps of humanity on its journeyalong the wait for the Savior, just as the right-hand melody further describes that pain, but not without a glimmer of hope in places.