Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Not the "Oak Ridge Boys" singing a song from 1743!

Yes, this gospel country-western group's rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's The Messiah is a favorite of mine. On August 23, 1743 Handel locked himself in his home and using a manuscript he had received from Charles Jennens of a word-for-word collection of various Biblical texts about Christ, completed in just 23 days this masterpiece. I've been blessed to sing the Christmas portion as part of the 1955 Wheaton College Chorus and the Easter portion as part of the Skagit County Community Chorus in 1971, as well of several "sing-along" groups in Seattle at the Christmas season. I saw a Christmas fund-raising TV Special for "Feed the Chidren" featuring the Oak Ridge Boys. They ending that TV Special with an acappella singing of the "Hallelujah Chorus". I've tried to get that DVD without success, so if anyone has access to that please contact me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The CD is entitled AN INCONVENIENT CHRISTMAS and available from the Feed the Children web store (www.feedthechildren.org).

James E. Gelatt said...

Thanks for the info. I still hope to find the actual concert on a DVD so I'll check with the site you listed and see it's available.