Handel Quotes

Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

After all, there was something rather pleasant in knowing that you were misunderstood. It made you feel different from everyone else.

When Handel had his breakdown, he was, according to my opera-loving mother, “the ideal man” in that state, honourable, loving the world he could no longer be a part of, even if the world was a place of continual war.

... true evil needs no reason to exist, it simply is and feeds upon itself.

I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wished to make them better.

The King walks. He nods. His glance is like God's touch - under it all things spring to life. A wave of his hand and a hundred musicians tear into the Handel, making a sound you've never heard before, and never will again. A sound that goes through you, through flesh and bone, and reorders the very beat of your heart.

The most sensitive,the most delicate of instruments is the mind of a little child

Jesus, these Protestants! In my church we didn't sing cheap hymns. With us it was Handel and Palestrina.

Meine Mittelmäßigkeit erkennen, nicht in geißelnder Selbstverachtung, nicht im Bekennerhochmut, sondern als Gefahr für die Integrität des Handels, wenn ich sie aus den Augen lasse.

Take a Nicodemus and put a Joseph Smith's spirit in him, and what do you have? Take a Da Vinci or a Michelangelo or a Shakespeare and give him a total knowledge of the plan of salvation of God and personal revelation and cleanse him and take a look at the statues he will carve and the murals he will paint and the masterpieves he will produce. Take a handel with his purposeful effort, his superb talent, his earnest desire to properly depict the story, and give him inward vision of the whole true story and revelation, and what a master you will have!

Does not… the ear of Handel predict the witchcraft of harmonic sound?

To me, animals have all the traits indicative of soul. For soul is not something we can see or measure...No one can prove that animals have souls. Asking for proof would be like demanding proof that I love my wife and children, or wanting me to prove that Handel's Messiah is a glorious masterpiece of music. Some truths simply cannot be demonstrated. But if we open our hearts to other creatures and allow ourselves to sympathize with their joys and struggles, we will find they have the power to touch and transform us. There is an inwardness in other creatures that awakens what is innermost in ourselves.

I should be sorry if I have only succeeded in entertaining them; I wished to make them better.

De liefde is die handeling waarbij iets a-posteriorisch –de bij toeval ontmoette ander– wordt omgezet in een a-priori –de voorwaarde om te kunnen leven–.

I have heard great music--even sublime music. I've heard music fit for princes, for kings. I have hard music fit for any monarch. But that night, for the first time in my life, I heard music fit for God.

To want a gift and not receive it,that is a life of torture. To have a gift and lose it--that is eternal hell.

Laura began to model herself more and more on those around her; to grasp that the unpardonable sin is to vary from the common mould.

It's worth remembering that [having a baby] is not of vital use to you as a woman. Yes, you could learn thousands of interesting things about love, strength, faith, fear, human relationships, genetic loyalty, and the effect of apricots on an immune digestive system. But I don't think there's a single lesson that motherhood has to offer that couldn't be learned elsewhere. If you want to know what's in motherhood for you, as a woman, then-in truth-it's nothing you couldn't get from, say, reading the 100 greatest books in human history; learning a foreign language well enough to argue in it; climbing hills; loving recklessly; sitting quietly, alone, in the dawn; drinking whiskey with revolutionaries; learning to do close-hand magic; swimming in a river in the winter; growing foxgloves, peas, and roses; calling your mum; singing while you walk; being polite; and always, always helping strangers. No one has ever claimed for a minute that childless men have missed out on a vital aspect of their existence, and were the poorer and crippled by it. Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Newton, Faraday, Plato, Aquinas, Beethoven, Handel, Kant, Hume, Jesus. They all seem to have managed quite well.

Kindness is like a muscle, the more we exercise it the better we are at it. Kindness starts as a thought but ends as an action. Acting kindly toward others is the only real way to let people know we care about them and their happiness. Without action, kindness just lives in our minds but never touches the real world. Being kind to others doesn’t have to be complex or fancy. Sometimes the simplest acts of kindness are seen as the most sincere, such as holding the door, helping with directions, saying “please” and “thank you,” or even just a smile.

Most often, however, we arrive at planets like this one … long forgotten after the Endplague has left them for dead. I played Handel. The survivors cried. They told me of the crimes they had committed. I told them of mine. Many were angry. More were ashamed. They asked, “Do we even have the right to hear this music? Is this okay?” But as I played, they listened. And slowly, their music welcomed them home. What did they find? Perhaps themselves. Perhaps each other—who am I to say? All I know is that I was not playing alone.

The key difference between a geek and a critic is that a critic digs deep and tries to get behind the surface of things, for better or worse, while a geek is interested in his own hedonism, the thrill of discovery.A geek is expansive and associative and doesn’t necessarily care what a film or a scene ‘means’. It’s the difference between the encyclopaedia and the scholar. A critic likes an interesting association, a nice phrase; the geek admires the beau geste, a pulpy story and its codes of honour taken seriously. Tarantino rather combines those two roles. He is encyclopaedic but also interpretive. He is a human Rolodex of credits. His films are like stuffed overnight bags breaking at the seams. The Handel of filmmakers, he takes the whole of cinema as his resource. But he also provides new meanings, new interpretations of old moments by the way he recontextualizes them.

Tallis with no pedal, Handel with, even the horrible organ piece that had been written for someone with three hands. He had thought it had all gone, but all he had done was lock himself up in a few little rooms and assume the rest of the house had fallen down. It hadn't. There were doors and doors, and dust, but when the curtains opened and the drapes came off, it was all where he had left it and hardly faded. He took his hands from the keys and sat with them in his lap instead, because his thoughts were echoing in the new space.

She could not then know that, even for the squarest peg, the right hole may ultimately be found

Inside each of us is our ideal life: our true north.

..there are men who regret that we cannot hear our Handel exactly as Handel meant us to because, unfortunately, we no longer castrate boy singers

Lass uns einen Handel abschließen." "Einen Handel?", wieder hole ich. "Gibt es hier ein Echo?" "Nein, aber ein Veilchen, wenn du mir so kommst.

It's not fair I should feel ill when I'm slooshying lovely Ludwig van and G.F. Handel and others.

Soms is een gedachte dichter bij de waarheid, bij de werkelijkheid, dan een handeling. Je kunt alles zeggen, je kunt alles doen, maar een gedachte kun je niet veinzen.

Die allermeiste Gesellschaft ist so beschaffen, dass wer sie gegen die Einsamkeit vertauscht einen guten Handel macht.

[W]enn der Austausch [Handel] nicht in Liebe und freundlicher Gerechtigkeit stattfindet, wird er bloß einige zur Gier und andere zum Hunger führen.

– En kärlek med villkor är ju handel.

Handel’s “He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd,” a popular anthem with elaborate part singing that the congregation performed faultlessly. As hundreds of tenor voices soared across the

When Handel was asked why his music was so cheerful, he replied, “I can’t make any other. I write as I feel. When I think on God my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap from my pen.” —George Frideric Handel

If we’re not the one driving our dreams forward, who is? If we don’t figure out how to change jobs, eat healthily, date, fall and stay in love, who will come save us? No one. But, then again, no one should, right? The are, after all, our dreams.

The human attitude of which classical music is the expression is always the same; it is always based on the same kind of insight into life and strives for the same kind of victory over blind chance. Classical music as gesture signifies knowledge of the tragedy of the human condition, affirmation of human destiny, courage, cheerful serenity. The grace of a minuet by Handel or Couperin, the sensuality sublimated into delicate gesture to be found in many Italian composers or in Mozart, the tranquil, composed readiness for death in Bach – always there may be heard in these works a defiance, a death-defying intrepidity, a gallantry, and a note of superhuman laughter, of immortal gay serenity. Let that same note also sound in our Glass Bead Games, and in our whole lives, acts, and sufferings.

Het is vooral van belang dat wij ons aandeel bekomen in de exploitatie van denieuwe en groote Chinesen markt. Geen beter middel, voorzeker , om ons in deze verre landen te doen kennen en ze zelf te leeren kennen, dan een nijverheids-en handelsgezantschap te sturen bij de hoven van Yedo en Peking, ten einde de keizers om hunne vriendschap te vragen en hun stalen aan te bieden van onze producten, als daar zijn : Kanonnen, krijgs-en prachtwapens, stoffen, tapijten, lakens, weefsels, garen, linnen, kant, meubelen, messen, spiegels, vensterglazen, rijtuigen, modellen van machines, stalen van ijzer, zink, kolen enz. enz.

Het volstaat te durven om te slagen; dat is een der geheimen van de macht en den luister dien, gedurende meer dan eene eeuw, onze naburen ten Noorden, de Vereenigde-Provinciën, genoten. Zonder eenigen twijfel bezitten wij gelijke bestanddeelen van voorspoed; waarom zouden onze bedoelingen niet evenzoo hoog strekken?

In the nineteenth century, Emile Durkheim, the founder of sociology and an early pioneer of the social sciences, ran a thought experiment in one of his books: What if there were no crime? What if there emerged a society where everyone was perfectly respectful and nonviolent and everyone was equal? What if no one lied or hurt each other? What if corruption did not exist? What would happen? Would conflict cease? Would stress evaporate? Would everyone frolic in fields picking daises and singing the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's Messiah? Durkheim said no, that in fact the opposite would happen. He suggested that the more comfortable and ethical a society became, the more that small indiscretions would become magnified in our minds. If everyone stopped killing each other, we wouldn't necessarily feel good about it. We'd just get equally upset about the more minor stuff. Developmental psychology has long argued something similar: that protecting people from problems or adversity doesn't make them happier or more secure; it makes them more easily insecure. A young person who has been sheltered form dealing with any challenges or injustices growing up will come to find the slightest inconveniences of adult life intolerable, and will have the childish public meltdown to prove it.

We hebben behoefte aan een algemeen stemrecht, zodat in de volksvertegenwoordiging eindelijk mensen verkozen worden die de echte belangen van het echte volk behartigen, pas dan kan het volk zich werkelijk een vrij volk weten, maar dat wordt belet door de wereld van de handel, de industrie, het kleine en het grote vermogen.

Having considered Handel's tumultuous opera career and his first term at Covent Garden in the 1730s, perhaps we may dare to suggest he was one of the foremost pioneers in establishing autonomy within the traditional system of music patronage, notwithstanding his efforts to become an independent impressario often proved disappointing.

William was quite the hand at Couperin’s Messe pour les couvents, too, and Alice had been right about the Christmas section from Handel’s Messiah. As for the seduced parishioner, the military man’s young wife, Jack’s mother told him little—only enough that the boy assumed his father hadn’t been asked to leave Kastelskirken for flubbing a refrain.

The empire of the sky occupies territory emptied of vitality. Heavenly imperialism aims at biological neutrality. How does music suck our blood? Man cannot live without support in space. But music annihilates space completely. The only art capable of bringing comfort, yet it opens up more wounds than all the others! Music is the sound track of askesis. Could one make love after Bach? Not even after Handel, whose unearthliness does not have a heavenly perfume. Music is a tomb of delights, beatitude which buries us. Saintliness also draws blood. We lose it in direct proportion to our longing for heaven. The roads to heaven have been worn smooth by all the erring instincts. Indeed, heaven was born of these errors.

Handel's yearning for independence from the traditional chains of patronage and his persistence in monitoring his productions resulted with unique developments concerning Baroque 'opera seria'; however, paradoxically his personal obsession to obtain complete artistic freedom generated disastrous side-effects that eventually impeded the progress of opera in London.

De volmaaktheid onzer producten en de matigheid onzer prijzen geven ons het recht eene ruime plaats op al de markten der wereld te eischen. Eene jonge natie als de onze moet stoutmoedig zijn, altijd vooruitgaan en vertrouwen in zich zelve stellen. Onze geldmiddelen zijn onschatbaar, ik vrees niet het te zeggen, en wij kunnen er een onberekenbaar voordeel mede doen.

Caroline, sister of William, was trained by him as a singer in the Bath days and had considerable success in Handel's oratorios under her brother's conductorship. (The method of training adopted was for her to sing the violin parts of concertos with a gag in her mouth.) It was with great reluctance that she dropped music to be trained as an assistant astronomer, yet she made discoveries — eight minor planets, one of them named after her.

He woke each dawn at 5:30, without need for an alarm, though he set one anyway just to be sure. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he lifted. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he jogged. Down along the Charles. Beneath the sagging boughs of honey locusts fat with fruit. Following his workout, he prepared a shake. After, he showered beneath the rainwater showerhead in the third-story bath-room, water beating down his back, the radio blaring classical music from its place on the marble vanity. Classical, not rock or country or top forty, because he'd been raised on Handel and Tchaikovsky and because sometimes, when he was very tightly wound, the instrumentals were the only things that eased the tension in his chest. When that was done, he dressed, made his bed--tucking his corners in with the militaristic precision his nanny had demanded of him when he was still small and belligerent and went downstairs to make eggs. Over easy, paired with whole-grain toast and a glass of orange juice. He had his routine down to a science, and he did the same thing every morning.

The treaty was finally signed, and the two young princes – Abdul Khaliq, who was eight, and Muizuddin, aged five – handed over to Cornwallis on 18 March 1792. The boys were taken off by elephant to Madras, which they appeared in general to like, though they clearly did not enjoy being made to sit through entire performances of Handel’s Messiah and Judas Maccabaeus.58 Having created a sensation in Madras society with their dignity, intelligence and politeness, they were sent back two years later when Tipu delivered the final tranche of his indemnity payment.

Did you ever notice that most of us relate to our lives like we have no control or say over them? Especially in areas where we’re not proud. We speak about ourselves like we’re reporting on the weather, making sweeping generalizations...And boy do we ever believe our own ‘forecasts.

Ever notice how on a bad day you never deserve a salad? I mean how long do you think your bad mood would really last if you only fed your brat celery? How many bad days would your brat tolerate if it no longer got rewarded a drink, a cigarette, or an entire Netflix series on the couch for it.

She didn’t really like classical music and there was no Vince to whisper in her ear and tell her what was beautiful about it. His descriptions were so clear. Handel was all scarlet ostrich feathers and silk ribbons fluttering in the wind, great silver trays blazing with candlelight. Wagner was trees creaking and silk ribbons fluttering in the wind, great silver trays blazing with candlelight. Wagner was trees creaking and snapping in the storm, foam running up the foot of a cliff, waves sweeping round rocks, black peaks reaching to the sky. Vince was no longer there, it was only music with no introduction and no commentary.

Isaiah 40–66 is of the utmost importance for the Gospels’ self-understanding and proclamation. Sprinkled throughout all the Gospels, but especially Matthew and Luke, are direct quotations, strong allusions, and subtle echoes from Isaiah. We can say without overstatement that the eschatological vision of Isaiah 40–66 serves as the primary subtext and framing for the Gospels’ witness.[41] This is not a new insight, as is witnessed by the centrality of Isaiah in Christian interpretation, in everything from homily and commentary to Handel’s famous oratorio Messiah, which begins with the tenor aria “Comfort, O Comfort my People” (from Isa. 40:1).

For out of it all rose the vague, crude picture of woman as the prey of man. Man was animal, a composite of lust and cruelty, with no aim but that of brutally taking his pleasure: something monstrous, yet to be adored; annihilating, yet to be sought after; something to flee and, at the same time, to entice, with every art at one's disposal.

The political powers, in both Jesus’ day and our own, play on fear to get their way—whether it be the fear of the emperor, the fear of terrorists, the fear of the foreign “other,” or the fear of death. But with “this day” comes a new possibility. The first words spoken after Jesus’ birth are “‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.

Human beings are responsible for art, science, medicine, education, the Sistine Chapel, Handel’s Messiah, New York City, space travel, the novel, photography, and Mexican food — I mean, who doesn’t love Mexican food? But we’re also responsible for a world with 27 million slaves, blatant racism, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the genocide in Rwanda, ISIS, the financial meltdown of 2008, pornography, global warming, the endangered-species list, and don’t even get me started on pop music. So we humans are a mixed bag. We have a great capacity — more than we know — to rule in a way that is life-giving for the people around us and the place we call home, or to rule in such a way that we exploit the earth itself and rob people of an environment where they can thrive. This was God’s risk. His venture. His experiment.

What the music offers in a good opera is something that comes from a region that precedes the concrete concept of drama and, strictly speaking, stands outside the world of drama. Opera does not permit men to appear in nakedly logical acts, for the music dissolves feelings and thoughts into melodies and rhythms, harmonies and counterpoints, which in themselves have no conceptual meaning. Thus in opera objective situations may very well become entirely subjective expressions. Because of its paradoxical nature opera is capable of paradoxical effects; it can express purely sensuously the most profound abstractions, and the musical drama, exerting a mass effect far more than does the spoken drama, is much more primitive as drama than the spoken theatre; it must render conflict and character in immediate symbols.

The ancient triumph of Christianity proved to be the single greatest cultural transformation our world has ever seen. Without it the entire history of Late Antiquity would not have happened as it did. We would never have had the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Renaissance, or modernity as we know it. There could never have been a Matthew Arnold. Or any of the Victorian poets. Or any of the other authors of our canon: no Milton, no Shakespeare, no Chaucer. We would have had none of our revered artists: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, or Rembrandt. And none of our brilliant composers: Mozart, Handel, or Bach. To be sure, we would have had other Miltons, Michelangelos, and Mozarts in their places, and it is impossible to know whether these would have been better or worse. But they would have been incalculably different.

In 2036, the USA elected an over-the-top, unapologetic fundamentalist president named Andrew Handel. Yes, that Handel. During his term, he tried to ban election of non-Christians to any public post, and tried to remove the constitutional separation between church and state. He was nominated, supported, and elected based on his religious views, rather than on his political or fiscal expertise. And of course, he appointed persons of similar persuasion to every post he could manage, in some cases blatantly ignoring laws and procedures. He and his cronies rammed through far-right policies with no thought for consequences. In a number of cases, when challenged on the results, he declared that God would not allow their just cause to fail. He eventually brought the USA to its knees in an economic collapse that made the 2008 recession look like a picnic in the park.

Biblia być może, a nawet na pewno, daje moralne przyzwolenia na handel ludźmi, czystki etniczne, niewolnictwo, na wykupywanie żony oraz masowe masakry i rzezie, lecz my nie mamy z tym nic wspólnego, ponieważ dopuszczały się tego prymitywne, pozbawione ogłady ssaki z gatunku homo sapiens. Nie trzeba przy tym dodawać, że żadne z tych makabrycznych, obłąkańczych wydarzeń opisanych w Księdze Wyjścia nigdy nie nastąpiło. Izraelscy archeologowie należą do najlepszych w świecie specjalistów w tej dziedzinie, nawet jeśli ich profesjonalizm bywa czasami skażony pragnieniem udowodnienia, że „przymierze” między Bogiem a Mojżeszem jest oparte na faktach. Nie było chyba grupy wykopaliskowej i badawczej, która pracowałaby z większym zapałem i mozołem czy z większymi oczekiwaniami niż Izraelczycy, którzy przeszukiwali, ziarnko po ziarnku, piaski półwyspu Synaj oraz krainy Kanaan.

Just listen you poor creature, listen without either pathos or mockery, while far away behind the veil of this hopeless idiotic and ridiculous apparatus the form of this divine music passes by. Pay attention and you will learn something. Observe what this crazy speaking-trumpet, apparently the most stupid, the most useless and the most damnable thing that the world contains, contrives to do. It take hold of some music played where you please, without distinction or discretion, lamentably distorted, to boot, and chucks it into space to land where it has no business to be; and yet after all this it cannot destroy the spirit of the music; it can only, however it may meddle and mar, lay its senseless mechanism at its feet. Listen, then, you poor thing. Listen well. You have need of it. And now you hear not only a Handel who, disfigured by radio, is, all the same, in the most ghastly of disguises, still divine;

wie niets heeft, kan niets delen. Wie alles moet delen wordt niet ruimhartiger, maar stuurloos. Geef kinderen vooral van alles voor henzelf en leer ze met de spullen van anderen omgaan zoals zij willen dat er met hun spullen wordt gespeeld. Eigendom dwingt tot beleefdheid en omgangsvormen. Als we kind zijn, veinzen we aardigheid om te krijgen wat we willen; het enige dat we later nog moeten leren is te vergeten dát we veinzen - pas als dat lukt hebben we het spel van fatsoen echt onder de knie.

In few human activities is competition more ingrained than in music, and has been so ever since the battle between Marsyas and Apollo. Wagner has immortalized these vocal battles in his Meistersinger. As instances from periods following that of the Meistersinger themselves we may cite the contest between Handel and Scarlatti got up by Cardinal Ottoboni in the year 1709, the chosen weapons being harpsichord and organ. In 1717 Augustus the Strong, King of Saxony and Poland, wanted to organize a contest between J. S. Bach and a certain Marchand, but the latter failed to appear. In 1726 all London society was in an uproar because of the competition between the two Italian singers Faustina and Cuzzoni: there were fisticuffs and catcalls. Factions and cliques develop with astonishing ease in musical life. The 18th century is full of these musical coteries—Bononcini versus Handel, Gluck versus Piccini, the Parisian “Bouffons” versus the Opera. The musical squabble sometimes took on the character of a lasting and embittered feud, such as that between the Wagnerians and the Brahmsians.

What is that particularly irritating little air you’re determined to vex our ears with?” Valentine stopped whistling to smirk at Westhaven’s question and started singing instead. “All we like sheep, have gone astraaaaaay.” “More Handel.” Sophie interrupted her brother’s little concert. “Seasonally appropriate. You two did not have to accompany me, you know.” “Nonsense.” Westhaven shot some sort of look at Valentine, who’d lapsed into humming. “I needed to call on the vicar since I’m in the area, and Valentine must tune the piano before the Christmas service.” “I’m getting very good at tuning pianos,” Valentine said. “A skill to fall back on if my wife ever casts me to the gutter.” “She won’t,” Sophie replied, patting her mare. “She’ll send you visiting your siblings and get her revenge on the whole family.” “Now, children,” Westhaven started, only to provoke Valentine back into a full-throated baritone recital. “All we like sheep, have gone astraaaaaaaaaaaaay.” Westhaven rolled his eyes. “To think my tiny son is all that stands between this braying ass and the Moreland dukedom.” “I made Sophie smile,” Val said, abruptly ceasing his braying. “My Christmas holiday is a success because I made Sophie smile.

In the words of the master: infinity but without melody. In the second place, with regard to the overthrowing,--this belongs at least in part, to physiology. Let us, in the first place, examine the instruments. A few of them would convince even our intestines (--they _throw open_ doors, as Handel would say), others becharm our very marrow. The _colour of the melody is_ all-important here, _the melody itself_ is of no importance. Let us be precise about _this_ point. To what other purpose should we spend our strength? Let us be characteristic in tone even to the point of foolishness! If by means of tones we allow plenty of scope for guessing, this will be put to the credit of our intellects. Let us irritate nerves, let us strike them dead: let us handle thunder and lightning,--that is what overthrows.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} But what overthrows best, is _passion_.--We must try and be clear concerning this question of passion. Nothing is cheaper than passion! All the virtues of counterpoint may be dispensed with, there is no need to have learnt anything,--but passion is always within our reach! Beauty is difficult: let us beware of beauty!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And also of _melody!_ However much in earnest we may otherwise be about the ideal, let us slander, my friends, let us slander,--let us slander melody! Nothing is more dangerous than a beautiful melody! Nothing is more certain to ruin taste! My friends, if people again set about loving beautiful melodies, we are lost!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} _First principle_: melody is immoral. _Proof_: "Palestrina". _Application_: "Parsifal." The absence of melody is in itself sanctifying.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And this is the definition of passion. Passion--or the acrobatic feats of ugliness on the tight-rope of enharmonic--My friends, let us dare to be ugly! Wagner dared it! Let us heave the mud of the most repulsive harmonies undauntedly before us. We must not even spare our hands! Only thus, shall we become _natural_.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

Then I’ll sing, though that will likely have the child holding his ears and you running from the room.” This, incongruously, had her lips quirking up. “My father isn’t very musical. You hold the baby, I’ll sing.” She took the rocking chair by the hearth. Vim settled the child in his arms and started blowing out candles as he paced the room. “He shall feed his flock, like a shepherd…” More Handel, the lilting, lyrical contralto portion of the aria, a sweet, comforting melody if ever one had been written. And the baby was comforted, sighing in Vim’s arms and going still. Not deathly still, just exhausted still. Sophie sang on, her voice unbearably lovely. “And He shall gather the lambs in his arm… and gently lead those that are with young.” Vim liked music, he enjoyed it a great deal in fact—he just wasn’t any good at making it. Sophie was damned good. She had superb control, managing to sing quietly even as she shifted to the soprano verse, her voice lifting gently into the higher register. By the second time through, Vim’s eyes were heavy and his steps lagging. “He’s asleep,” he whispered as the last notes died away. “And my God, you can sing, Sophie Windham.” “I had good teachers.” She’d sung some of the tension and worry out too, if her more peaceful expression was any guide. “If you want to go back to your room, I can take him now.” He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to leave her alone with the fussy baby; he didn’t want to go back to his big, cold bed down the dark, cold hallway. “Go to bed, Sophie. I’ll stay for a while.” She frowned then went to the window and parted the curtain slightly. “I think it’s stopped snowing, but there is such a wind it’s hard to tell.” He didn’t dare join her at the window for fear a chilly draft might wake the child. “Come away from there, Sophie, and why haven’t you any socks or slippers on your feet?” She glanced down at her bare feet and wiggled long, elegant toes. “I forgot. Kit started crying, and I was out of bed before I quite woke up.” They shared a look, one likely common to parents of infants the world over. “My Lord Baby has a loyal and devoted court,” Vim said. “Get into bed before your toes freeze off.” She gave him a particularly unreadable perusal but climbed into her bed and did not draw the curtains. “Vim?” “Hmm?” He took the rocker, the lyrical triple meter of the aria still in his head. “Thank you.” He

„Zie zoo, nu zie ik ze niet meer. Jij weet niet wat handel is, Koekebakker, anders zou je der niet om lachen. Om te beginnen ga je tot je achtiende jaar op school. Heb jij ooit geweten hoeveel schapen er in Australië zijn en hoe diep ’t Suezkanaal is? Nou juist, daar heb je het. Ik heb dat geweten. Weet jij wat polarisatie is? Ik ook niet, maar ik heb ’t geweten. De raarste dingen heb ik moeten leeren. Vertaal in ’t Fransch: [80]„onder benefice van inventaris.” Ga der maar tegen aan staan. Je hebt er geen begrip van, Koekebakker. Dat duurt zoo jaren. Dan doet je ouwe heer je op een kantoor. Dan merk je, dat je al die dingen geleerd hebt om met een kwast papier nat te maken. Overigens is ’t ’t ouwe gedonderjaag, ’s morgens om negen uur present en urenlang stil zitten. Ik vond dat ik op die manier niet opschoot. Ik kwam altijd te laat, ik probeerde wel op tijd te komen, maar ’t wou niet meer, ik had ’t zooveel jaren gedaan. En taai. Ze zeiden dat ik alles verkeerd deed, daar zullen ze wel gelijk aan gehad hebben. Ik wilde wel, maar ik kon niet, ik ben geen kerel om te werken. Ze zeiden, dat ik de anderen van hun werk hield. Ook daarin zullen ze wel gelijk gehad hebben. Als ik klaagde, dat ik ’t niks lollig vond en vroeg of ik daarvoor nu op school al die wonderlijke dingen had geleerd, dan zei de oue boekhouder: „Ja jongetje, het leven is geen roman.” Bakken vertellen, dat kon ik en dat vonden ze leuk ook, maar ze waren er niet tevreden mee. De ouwe boekhouder wist al heel gauw niet wat hij met me doen moest. Als de baas er niet was maakte ik dierengeluiden, zong komieke liedjes, die ze nog nooit hadden gehoord. De zoon van den baas was een ingebeelde kwajongen; af en toe kwam i op kantoor om centen te halen. Hij sprak vreeselijk gemaakt en keek met een allerellendigst, door niets gemotiveerd vertoon van superioriteit naar de bedienden van zijn pa. De lui lachten zich een beroerte als ik dien jongeheer nadeed. Ik heb daar ook nog een schrijfmachine bedorven en een boek weggemaakt. Toen hebben ze me aan een toestel gezet, dat ze de „guillotine” noemden. Daar moest ik monsters mee knippen. Dagen lang heb ik daaraan gestaan: alle monsters werden scheef. De lui hadden ’t wel in de gaten, ze hadden niets [81]anders verwacht. Ze hadden me daar alleen maar aan gezet om erger te voorkomen. Die monsters werden weggegooid; die gingen nooit naar de klanten. Toch had ik in die dagen nog gelegenheid om een brief verkeerd in te sluiten. Natuurlijk was ’t erg; de man die den brief kreeg mocht niet weten, dat de baas zaken deed met den man waaraan i geschreven was. De boekhouder was totaal van streek. Toen begreep ik, dat ik maar liever heen moest gaan. Ik kreeg een poot van den baas. Ik was zelf ook blij dat ik wegging en heb hem hartelijk de hand geschud. Ik heb gezegd, dat ’t me speet, maar dat ik er niets aan doen kon en ik geloof, dat ’k ’t meende. Zie je, Koekebakker, dat is handel. Ik ben daarna nog drie weken volontair geweest op een effectenkantoortje, krantjes nakijken met een boek om te zien of de stukken van de klanten waren uitgeloot. Je ergste vijand zal er voor bewaard blijven. Ze moesten me wegdoen. Ik moest daar ook copieeren. Er was geen denken aan, dat ze uit ’t copieboek konden wijs worden. Ik zag wel in dat ’t zoo niet ging, ik kon er mijn hoofd niet bij houden.

Als het effect van een handeling precies het tegengestelde is van wat je ermee beoogt, dan spreken we van een contraproductieve reflex. Een veel gebruikt voorbeeld hiervan is krabben als je jeuk hebt van een muggenbeet: de jeuk wordt er juist erger door. Een verslaving is een schoolvoorbeeld van een contraproductieve reflex: het verslavende middel is bedoeld om een einde te maken aan een beknellend gevoel en in plaats daarvan een prettig gevoel te creëren. Dat lukt telkens heel eventjes tijdens de roes van het middel, maar tegelijkertijd versterkt het gebruik van dat middel de negatieve gevoelens die men er juist mee wilde ontvluchten. Als je drinkt om je geremdheid in gezelschap kwijt te raken, zul je jezelf steeds geremder gaan voelen en de drank steeds meer nodig hebben om nog af en toe iets spontaans te kunnen doen. Gebruik je pepmiddelen om van je chronische moeheid af te komen en het leven energieker tegemoet te treden, dan zul je je steeds vermoeider gaan voelen en op den duur niet eens je huis meer kunnen opruimen zonder het pepmiddel.

Passt sie zu dem, was ich bereits habe? Handele ich nur aus einer Laune heraus? Hat es für mich einen wirklichen Nutzen, oder macht mir einfach nur der Besitz an sich Freude?

The truth that could be extracted from words was such a fluctuating, relative truth

5 voices: Handel's harpsichord pieces + T (thought) + D (drama) + S (story) + P (poem) T: And it is possible in imagination/// to divorce speech of all graphic elements,/// to let it become a movement of sounds. D: I came thru there (points finger downward, moves his head negatively from side to side) My mother hit her mother?/// (falls to the floor in a fit)/// (rises, limp,) S: This story was a story of our time./// And a writer's attempts not to fathom his time/// amount but to sounding his mind in it. P: Blest / infinite things / /// So many / Which /// confuse imagination / Thru its weakness,

A God who intended us to ignore our most basic needs and desires would never have dreamt up over 2,000 species of jellyfish to dazzle us or painted the sunset with the most delicate hues of peach against backdrops of vivid tangerine. We serve a God who created giraffes with their spindly necks, puzzle-piece-patterned bodies, and ludicrously long tongues and called it good. We serve a God who granted newborn babies the most delicious-smelling heads and dreamed up the idea of juicy, sun-warmed strawberries. We serve a God who rejoices over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17) and thought that the world was incomplete without the contributions of musical geniuses like Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven. We do not serve a curmudgeonly or stingy God but a lavish and loving God, one who delights to give us good gifts, starting with his very presence.

I’m a good shot with the pistol,” Handel said. “I can hit the side of a barn.

Connor hesitated, biting his lip in the cutest, sexiest way. I squeezed his fingers gently. “You can tell me.” “What if I’m not straight?” In my mind, Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” burst forth.

They wove them into the fabric of time, passing them down from generation to generation. Snippets of the story were passed down, too, with no one the wiser that they were vessels. Humming bits of Handel's Messiah to babes as they fell asleep. Naming pigs after the one who came before it, and before that, and before even that. Generations of pigs named Salt, nobody dreaming the name sprang from the sty of one of the finest warships ever to traverse the seas in the name of His Majesty the King.

The next stage is a hornfels, a thoroughly recrystallized rock, so named after its supposed resemblance to animal horn. Hornfels has one rather unexpected quality—when suitably shaped, it can produce beautiful musical notes when struck. Indeed, it took central place in an extraordinary narrative of the English Lake District. An eccentric 18th-century inventor, Peter Crosthwaite—a fighter against Malay pirates in his youth and, later in life, the founder of a museum in the town of Keswick—built a kind of xylophone using hornfels from the local Skiddaw mountain. Half a century later, the Keswick stone-maker and musician Joseph Richardson determined to top Crosthwaite’s achievement, and almost ruined his family financially by building an even bigger instrument, which would produce a larger range of musical notes. Once built, though, it was indeed a sensation. Richardson toured England for three years with his sons, playing Handel, Mozart, and dance tunes on his rock creation—though at times restraining the power of the instrument so it would not shatter concert hall windows. Queen Victoria liked the performances so much that she requested extra concerts (although reports from the time do suggest that she was not amused at its imitation of Alpine bells). The harmonious hornfels ‘lithophones’ may still be seen in the Keswick museum—and are to this day occasionally taken on musical tour.

The second main argument to support the idea that simple living enhances our capacity for pleasure is that it encourages us to attend to and appreciate the inexhaustible wealth of interesting, beautiful, marvelous, and thought-provoking phenomena continually presented to us by the everyday world that is close at hand. As Emerson says: “Things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote. . . . This perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries.”47 Here, as elsewhere, Emerson elegantly articulates the theory, but it is his friend Thoreau who really puts it into practice. Walden is, among other things, a celebration of the unexotic and a demonstration that the overlooked wonders of the commonplace can be a source of profound pleasure readily available to all. This idea is hardly unique to Emerson and Thoreau, of course, and, like most of the ideas we are considering, it goes back to ancient times. Marcus Aurelius reflects that “anyone with a feeling for nature—a deeper sensitivity—will find it all gives pleasure,” from the jaws of animals to the “distinct beauty of old age in men and women.”48 “Even Nature’s inadvertence has its own charms, its own attractiveness,” he observes, citing as an example the way loaves split open on top when baking.49 With respect to the natural world, celebrating the ordinary has been a staple of literature and art at least since the advent of Romanticism in the late eighteenth century. Wordsworth wrote three separate poems in praise of the lesser celandine, a common wildflower; painters like van Gogh discover whole worlds of beauty and significance in a pair of peasant boots; many of the finest poems crafted by poets like Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, and Seamus Heaney take as their subject the most mundane objects, activities, or events and find in these something worth lingering over and commemorating in verse: a singing thrush, a snowy woods, a fish, some chilled plums, a patch of mint. Of course, artists have also celebrated the extraordinary, the exotic, and the magnificent. Homer gushes over the splendors of Menelaus’s palace; Gauguin left his home country to seek inspiration in the more exotic environment of Tahiti; Handel composed pieces to accompany momentous ceremonial occasions. Yet it is striking that a humble activity like picking blackberries—the subject of well-known poems by, among others, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney, and Richard Wilbur—appears to be more inspirational to modern poets, more charged with interest and significance, than, say, the construction of the world’s tallest building, the Oscar ceremonies, the space program, or the discovery of DNA’s molecular structure. One might even say that it has now become an established function of art to help us discover the remarkable in the commonplace

Christmas is a spontaneous prayer of the common folks, a prayer, a hymn. All the while Raphael was paintng the Sistine Madonna, Frenchman building the cathedral of Chartres, English bishops composing The Book of Common Prayer, Handel his Messiah, Bach his B Minor Mass, the common people, out of whom these geniuses sprang, were busy composing Christmas.

As we’ve said before, they’re attempting to develop a repertoire that matches the aesthetics and ideology of National Socialism. They want ‘pure’ German content, drawn from national fairy tales, and legends—anything that deals with the glorification of the fatherland, or the politics of race. They’ve targeted the new jazz out of America because it’s linked with Africans, but the music is so popular, Goebbels can’t keep the people away from the swing bands, so they pretend it’s German. They recently broadcast Duke Ellington’s ‘Caravan,’ repressing its origin. They rewrote Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus with Judas rebirthed as a powerful military dictator.” “They’re trying to erase reality,” Ida said, incredulously.

I’ll be your daddy now Little Reece Doesn’t every good girl need a daddy

Do you know that nice poem: ‘The days passed slowly one by one. I fed the ducks, reproved my wife, played Handel’s Largo on the fife and took the dog a run.

without the Foundling Hospital, Handel’s Messiah may have been relegated to obscurity instead of becoming acknowledged as the enduring Baroque masterpiece it is today.

As the intelligence historian Michael Handel writes in his assessment of Operation Mincemeat: “It is very unusual and very difficult17 for deception to create new concepts for an enemy. It is much easier and more effective to reinforce those which already exist.

Bach and Handel were both blinded by the same ocular surgeon.

Voor de zachtmoedigen, verdrukten, Tot geregelde arbeid onwilligen, Voor de met moedwil mislukten En de grootsch onverschilligen, De reine roekeloozen, Door het kalm leven verworpen, Die boven steden en dorpen De woestenijen verkozen, Die zonder een zegekrans Streden verloren slagen En ‘t liefst met hun fiere lans De wankelste tronen schragen; Voor allen, omgekomen Door hun dédain voor profijt, Slechts beheerscht door hun droomen De spot der bezitters ten spijt, Neem ik bezit van dit eiland, Plant ik de zwarte vlag, Neem iedere natie tot vijand, Erken slechts ‘t azuur als gezag. Wie nadert met goede bedoeling: Handel, lust of bekeering, Wordt geweerd aan ‘t rif door bezwering Of in ‘t atol door onderspoeling. Oovral op aarde heerscht orde, Men late mijn eiland met rust; ‘t Blijft woest, zal niet anders worden Zoolang ik kampeer op zijn kust.

There are such astoundingly beautiful hymns to Jesus freely available to each one of us, written by many of the greatest musicians of all time, from Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion to Aretha Franklin’s rendition of “Amazing Grace” and Chance the Rapper’s mix of “How Great (is our God).

Well Josie,” my dad turned to me suddenly. “I think you and Samuel have earned the right to name the colt. Whaddya think?” I looked at Samuel expectantly, but he just shrugged, dipping his head in my direction as he deferred to me. “Go ahead, Josie.” “George Frederic Handel,” I said impulsively. Jacob and my dad groaned loudly in unison and hooted in laughing protest. “What the hell kind of name is that, Josie?” My brother howled. “He’s a composer!” I cried out, embarrassed and wishing I had taken a minute to think before I blurted out the first thing that came to my head. A smile played around Samuel’s lips as he joined in the fray. “He wrote the music that Josie played last night at the church service.” “I just thought the colt should have a Christmas name, and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus is synonymous with Christmas!” I defended and then cringed as Jacob and my dad burst out laughing again. My dad wiped tears of mirth from his eyes as he tried to get control of himself. “We’ll call him Handel,” he choked out. “It’s a very nice name, Josie.” He patted my shoulder, still chuckling. I felt like I was ten years old.

I had just sat down with my plate of food and hit play on the new CD player I’d received the night before, ready to hear the sounds of Handel’s opening movement, when I remembered the horses. “Ah hell!” I cursed, sounding exactly like my dad. It was hard not to grow up swearing when you lived on a farm. We never took the Lord’s name in vain or said the F-word, but pretty much damn, hell, and shit were part of the vernacular of most folks born and raised in Levan. To tell the truth, those words weren’t really considered swear words. Last week in church, Gordon Aagard was giving a sermon on trials. He referred to horse shit right in the middle of his talk, and nobody really batted an eye.

So although there is no phoenix here, there is, nonetheless, a fierce, stubborn, wildly insightful, arrogantly honest, crazily committed, and caring human, who will take the heat, the brunt of whatever silver spoon joke you may have, so I can help you have everything you want in your life. And I mean everything.

Being able to tell the truth about our own lack of personal integrity has integrity to it. The key to being able to deal with and lighten up about our own humanity is to get wholly honest about our dishonesty.

Ever notice how we are constantly talking to ourselves in our heads. We not only profess to know what others are thinking, but also what their responses will be––and even what they really meant by what they said. Apparently, we are all mind readers, without much proven psychic ability.

Our mind has a mind of its own.

Look. The world is full of liars, and it’s time someone admitted it, shed a light on it, and lightened up about it.

Telling the whole truth and nothing but is the ultimate taking care of yourself. I can’t tell you how many clients of mine, once they clean up their lie list and resolve the big ones, cure themselves of their own depression.

Our foibles, issues, lies, and idiosyncrasies are not the problem, I swear. Our hiding them is. It’s what leaves us not trusting each other and not developing ourselves to become trustworthy.

What if the longer we don’t deal with the memories we are haunted by, the more these memories, like long-ignored cavities, become not only painfully sensitive, but require root canal?

Once you realize that your relationship is more important than your individual point of view. That’s where the true definition of “union” lives.

Heading back into your life to dust off and decipher old memories allows you to fully grasp how much power you have always held in your life. It helps you start to see that the way you have stored your memories and the role you played in them can be altered by you at any moment. Truly. At any moment in time. Hell, with one phone call.

Joseph tipped his face up and saw a sprig of mistletoe some wag had hung over a signboard. On the square, a seasonal street chorus launched into a jaunty version of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.” And that gladdened his heart yet more. Before common sense or some other overrated commodity could stop him, Joseph brushed his lips to Louisa’s cheek, treating himself to a goodly dose of cinnamon, cloves, and female warmth. “Happy Christmas, Louisa Windham.” He stole that Christmas kiss for himself—he’d been an exceedingly good fellow in the previous year—though he expected at least a scolding for his troubles. “Rascal.” Louisa ducked her face and led him off down the street, not the least daunted, bless her. “I’m out of practice. When my brothers were underfoot, no one was safe from their infernal kisses this time of year. They will soon be visiting and I can assure you by the New Year, you’ll have to be much quicker to catch me under the mistletoe.” As

Wat is dan jouw levensideaal? Wat is dan geen Oblomovisme? Streeft dan niet iedereen hetzelfde na als ik? Neem me niet kwalijk! Maar is het doel van al jullie drukte, hartstochten, oorlogen, handel en politiek dan niet het zoeken van rust, het vinden van het verloren paradijs?

A gust of warm air enveloped Baldwin midstride and the strains of Handel’s Water Music drifted to his ears. Fitz came out of the large wooden doors that led to the nave of the church. An avuncular smile filled his broad features. Baldwin stopped pacing for a moment, happy to have the short-lived heat and the company.

Die Behauptung, daß Effrom nicht besonders gut kochen konnte, war eine Untertreibung von ähnlichem Kaliber wie die Feststellung, daß es sich bei Völkermord um eine nicht besonders erfolgversprechende PR-Strategie handele.