The Bible and Music

In today’s class segment, we spent the majority of it discussing the impact music has on the anointing of British King and Queens. One interesting fact that I learned was how G.F. Handel wrote up to four coronation anthems that were derived from the text of the King James Bible. These were designed to play at the coronation of the British Monarch. When the British Kings and Queens got anointed, they even made reference to biblical anointing. The Anointing video that we watched in class with Queen Elizabeth was something I have never seen before, however I enjoyed hearing the music and how it impacted the emotion of a significant moment in British history. Professor McGrath stated that Handel could provide a mind picture for a majority of his work and he still produced his music with a feeling of simplicity. He broke it down in simpler terms. Although we seem to associate Handel’s Messiah with Christmas, you can analyze it like we did in class and examine the meaning of how he combined a variety of bible verses. At first I was confused with the meaning of the Messiah, however my interest grew as he brought in different Psalms and other biblical texts. I did not realize how Handel could change the meaning of the biblical verse with the context of his music. We talked about how we do not always know what is going on in a composer’s head and it would different to see what was going on when Handel composed his work.