Digitizing History: Palestine Broadcasting Service, 1936-1948

Religious Affairs Christmas

Christmas 1938

JERUSALEM RADIO - DECEMBER 23, Page 2

What will be uppermost in our minds when we wish each other a happy Christmas on Sunday morning? No doubt there will be the realisation that it is "the old, old, wish"; and consequently our thoughts may be as much in the past as in the present. This annual Christmas greeting has had its place in our lives farther back than we can remeber. And it is good that we should thus think back and enrich our enjoyment of the present from memory's storehouse. But it is not enough just to do this. A greater enrichment (in fact, the greatest possible) comes from a clearer and more adequate appreciation of the essentialmeaning of Christmas itself. And it is to that we should turn our thoughts. The task is not a difficult one. We need be in no doubt as to what Christmas stands for. It is expressed in two words in the angelic chorus which heralded the birth of Christ: peace and goodwill. It was to bring this double gift to man that the Son of Mary was born in Bethlehem.

This year there can be no Bethlehem Broadcast, owing to the absence of necessary facilities. This fact should make us think: it is the result of our failure during the past year to preserve the spirit of Bethlehem in our dealings with one another.And in consequence listeners all over the world, as well as we ourselves, are being deprived this Christmas of something that has been so eagerly looked forward to during recent Christmases: the bells and carols of Bethlehem. Thus we are reaping a harvest that is in accordance with our sowing.

Our thoughts of the past, then, must bring to all men and women of goodwill, not merely the recollection of many happy Christmases spent in the 'old-fashioned way', with the family reunion and family worship, and the spirit of Bethlehem manifest in the warm-hearted greetings of friends and neigbours:

what peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!";

there must be also , and we may surely say there is, a deep sorrow that these memories are now mingled with our awareness of the unhappiness and the sufferings of the past year.

But it is just here we can make use of the opportunities of the present. The spirit of Bethlehem is not after all a "Will o' the Wisp", permanently elusive.It can be captured, if we are perservering enough to do it. But we can only do it if we realise its true meaning and significance. We sum up the Christmas message in the two words "Peace and goodwill"; but we more often than not fail to appreciate that in their original setting in the angelic message they mean "peace among men of goodwill". And the implications of this are clear: if we would secure peace in human life we must begin by cultivating goodwill. So often, in our efforts for peace, we seem to be trying to begin ast the other end. We seek peace, and it does not come. And we wonder why. And all the time the answer is that it will never come by itself: it is rather the natural product of the spirit of goodwill.

Let us then, this Christmas, buy up the opportunity which the present affords of redeeming the past, and go forward into the future in hope. Though hope by itself will not be sufficient. We have implied that there must be charity : we must add that there must be faith. And that brings us to the first part of the Bethlehem chorus, of which we have as yet made no mention; and it also enables us to complete the verse partly quoted above:

"But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill".

We need some element of the divine in human life in order that goodwill, and so peace, may really fill our hearts. And that divine element came at Christmas when the Son of God was born into human life. Hence the Christmas message begins with: "Glory to God in the highest", and in doing so issues an invitation to all men and women or goodwill to search among the things or God for the peace which they feel has for so Jong eluded their grasp.

In that Spirit we invite all listeners to join in the worship that will be offered on Sunday morning in St. George's Cathedral. St. George's is the centre of Anglican work, not only in Palestine, but also in Syria, Cyprus, Trans-Jordan and laraq; and we are therefore happy that this opportunity is afforded us of inviting all in these lands of the Near East who can do so, to unite with us in thus rendering glory and praise to God. We wish all listeners a happy Christmas and many even happier ones in the future.

Handel's "Messiah"

Handel's Oratorio, the "Messiah", was composed (the libretto being taken from Holy Scripture by Charles Jennens) between August 22 and September 14, 1741; in all only 24 days' work.

It was first performed (during Handel's sojourn in Ireland) in the Music Hall, Fishamble Street, Dublin, on April 13, 1742. The first performance in England was given at Convent Garden Theatre on March 23 the following year.

Handel had taken out English naturalisation papers in 1726 ; but it was only, after a long, bitter and acrimonious struggle that his position in London became fully secure ; that opposition gradually died away, and he was at length left in undisturbed enjoyment of the position to which his genius entitled him. He died on April 14, 1759, and was buried in Westminster Abbey six days later.

The history of art can hardly show a parallel to the enormous influence which HandeJ exercised over English music immediately after the production of the "Messiah", and for well nigh a century after his death; even yet the composer's name is a sort of national fetish to thousands of people who cannot for their lives, see any difference in quality between the best and the worst things in the "Messiah". The "Messiah" is, indeed, still a part of the average Englishman's life, and he criticises its music no more than he criticises its words. Handel himself, however, took originally to oratorio-writing simply as an experiment towards recapturing the favour of his patrons among the gentry and nobility who had grown tired of hearing Italian Opera written by a German for English audiences at Covent Garden; but the experiment, risky as it was, secured the artistic canonisation of the experimenter, for no other musical work in the history of the world has won the kind of homage which in England has fallen to the lot of the "Messiah".

Though much ink has been spilt on the subject of Handel's well known plagiarisms*, yet, after all, we must give Handel the credit for being in a sense the most courageous great composer who has ever lived ; he tried to base his title to immortality on a direct popular appeal. He was content to turn out huge masses of work which, if he ever reflected for a moment, he must have known to be worthless, in a sort, of patient certainty that sooner or later true inspiration would come. And when it did come, as it certainly came in many parts of the "Messiah", then we have the real Handel - the man on whose grave even Beethoven said he would kneel bare-headed.

In the concert to be relayed from St. George's Cathedral on Tuesday night some of Handel's most beautiful arias and some of his most effective choruses will be heard. (Listeners, are askedto note the alteration from the usual timing of the PBS. Tuesday-night concerts. The excerpts from the "Messiah" will be given in two parts: the first from 8:45 PM to 9:15 PM, and the second part from 9:30PM to 10:00 PM.

*For the material evidence see " The indebtedness of Handel to works by other composers" (Sedley Taylor), with complete examples in musical notation. Readers are also referred to " The History of Music in England", - a most excellent work by Ernest Walker, published at the Clarendon Press, Oxford.

For Children Only

We hope that you're not going to be too busy next week, and that there'll still be time in between sending off your Christmas presents and arranging your parties to listen in to Children's Hour.

Tuesday's Children's Hour promises to be great fun. It's called "The Patchwork Quilt" and it's written by Monica Marsden, who writes such lovely stories about her three naughty Dachshunds. This time she hasn't written a story, but a musical feature programme. You know, don't you, that patchwork quilts are made from little pieces of material of all different colours and kinds - old pieces of stuff cut from a dress or a curtain, so of course every little patch brings back a memory. The patchwork quilt which you are going to hear about on Tuesday belongs to the grandmother of a little girl called Nadine, and it brings back lovely memories, sad and gay.

Then also on Tuesday you'll hear some songs about Christmas : "The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot", "The Fairy on The Christmas Tree", and "The Night Before Christmas", and they're all rather sweet. On Friday there will be a pageant especially for Christmas. It's called "While Shepherds Watched" and it's been written by Flora Moody who writes many plays for Children's Hour - the last ones were about the "Jan" Family.

We know that you're going to like this pageant, which will have many lovely carols in it and very many beautiful scenes filled with the true spirit of Christmas. So even if you're at a party, turn on the radio set and let all the children you're with listen in too. In next week's column we shall give you more details of the Christmas Pageant, including the theme of the song "While Shepherds Watched". PHOTO: MARGARET ROSE
Who Likes To Play The Boy In Children's Hours

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