Brush up your Handel

’Tis the season to be jolly — in spite of the gloom outside and the torrents of rain. But how do you banish the winter ghouls, put on a mask of good cheer and go forth beaming into the pre-Christmas crowds? Radio Three has come up with a possible help-all, by launching its Sing Hallelujah! campaign just as the days shorten into dreary half-light. So far the station has signed up almost 350 amateur choirs nationwide who at some time between now and Christmas will be performing Handel’s exhilarating chorus from Messiah. It’s the culmination of the year-long celebration of the composer’s music, marking 250 years since his death in 1759. On Christmas Day there’ll be a broadcast of ENO’s controversial operatic production of the oratorio (see review page 57). So get practising all ye at home who need cheering up, and brush up your Handel. There’s no excuse for not taking part, since even if you don’t already belong to a choir you can download the orchestral backing (and the separate chorus parts) from the Radio Three website and sing along to yourself if you so desire in a place where no one else can hear you.

The station’s quick and easy antidote to the malignancy of the season could be adopted as a government strategy. Singing does not just release all those festering demons, it can also create a real sense of community, bringing people together to make music for free. On Sunday night’s The Choir we were taken up to Oban in the company of our guide, Andrew Robertson, for the Royal National Mod, the festival of the Gaelic language, which has taken place every year since 1892. It’s a week-long gathering of Gaelic speakers, competing with each other for prizes in music and poetry but also revelling in the opportunity to express their commonwealth of words. The singing of these choirs is shaped by the Gaelic language and is quite distinctive, so light of tone and restlessly lilting, as if born out of the rushing wind and rolling mists of the Scottish highlands and islands. ‘Bi Falbh on uineag’, for instance (sung by the prizewinning Dingwall Gaelic Choir), just rippled along in waves of sound determined by those soft-sounding vowels, so different from the roaring majesty of the ‘Hallelujah’.

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