One of the greatest challenges as we study and rehearse the choruses from Messiah is to approach the work with a new diligence that will allow us to go beyond our past associations with it: we must learn to hear it and enable the singers in our choirs to sing it with first-time freshness. We must go beyond mere review to find a new plateau of performance level. Nothing less will suffice as we honor the composer whose 300th birthday we celebrate.
The main body of this discussion will be a presentation of choral exercises based on selected musical content contained in four choruses from Handel’s Messiah. These exercises should be considered representative rather than exhaustive examples of sets of musical goals and means for achieving those goals.
By way of general description, each of the following exercises is an attempt to isolate certain difficulties and to solve inherent problems out of context. A short exercise, if properly designed, is a more accessible and efficient way of dealing with such problems than “running through” entire choruses. These exercises encapsulate the essences of each of the four choruses so as to illustrate character-oriented goals as an alternative to spending precious rehearsal time trying to explain them. There is throughout this discussion an emphasis on rhythmic precision, clarity of pitch, and nuance of phrasing which should serve to create habits that can be transferred into performance. When used for pre-rehearsal warm-up, these exercises can aid in preparing the mind and the ear, in addition to the vocal mechanism, for the rehearsal to come. They may also be helpful in structuring the· rehearsal. It is preferable to teach and rehearse these exercises by rote to prevent unnecessary addiction to the printed page. Once the exercises have been learned and the goals of each exercise clarified, singers may be encouraged to use them outside rehearsal in individual practice routines.
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