Music for this week

I have been thinking of this familiar and beloved music today, after singing some hymns with the same words earlier today.

Music is a comfort. Handel's Messiah is usually sung before Christmas, but it is really music for Holy Week.

"Oh death, where is thy sting? oh grave, where is thy victory? Sometimes this duet is sung by an alto and a tenor, but here the alto's part is sung by a counter-tenor.

"I know that my redeemer liveth" is here sung by Lynn Dawson. Lovely.

""Comfort ye" and "Every valley shall be exalted" with tenor Paul Elliott, and the Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Christopher Hogwood. Compare his clear and pure tone to the warmer, more operatic Aksel Schiøtz, whose interpretation is also glorious.

Alistair Miles sings "The Trumpet shall sound" in which my favorite word is "incorruptible."

A revelation: Kathleen Ferrier's "He was despised." Listen to how she sings "A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief".

Finally, I dearly love Samuel Ramey's version of "Why do the nations rage so furiously togther?"