Although I try not to be too much of a grinch, the truth is that some aspects of the Christmas season do tend to bring out the worst of my misanthropy.  I can’t stand the forced merriment, the endless parade of adverts, or the music.  Oh God, the music.  First, there is the crap that saturates the radio and shopping malls and makes me wish that I could pull a Beethoven and go deaf during the entire month of December.  Second, it means that, for yet another year, every musical ensemble on the planet feels compelled to perform Handel’s Messiah. 

I’ve whined about this before on both Facebook and Twitter, but allow me to elaborate at somewhat greater length here.  I have nothing against the Messiah and will fully concede that it is one of the greatest works of choral music ever written, yadda yadda yadda, but the singular and borderline fetishistic worship of the piece during this time of year gets mind-numbingly dull with a rapidity that typically only associated with the dissolution of a Kardashian marriage.  It’s not like Handel even wrote the damn thing for Christmas! – which actually makes me wonder how the Messiah became so closely linked with this holiday in particular.  But that is beside the point.

As such, I am proud to launch something that I have termed the “Handel Only Limits Ideas of December-Appropriate and/or Yuletide-Inspired Music” Project, which can be conveniently abbreviated as the “H.O.L.I.D.A.Y. Music” Project (see what I did there?).  Its objectives are as follows:

• To foster awareness of the fact that classical music is an excellent & inspiring accompaniment to the winter/holiday season and, in any case, better than listening to this load of tripe
• To furthermore recognise that there is more to classical music than a gaggle of sopranos screeching, “HAAAALLELUJAH!  HAAAALLELUJAH!”
• To incite a worldwide revolution against the alienating conformity that stems from the reification of the Messiah – let’s #occupytheconcerthall!  1 percent of the oratorios generate 84 percent of ticket revenues, man.

Or, er, not, as far as the third point is concerned, but do check back tomorrow for the first part of this project!  (For all of the facetiousness of this introductory post, I should mention that I really did enjoy putting this together – I’m not that much of a grinch – and hope that you, ladies & gentlemen of the readership, enjoy it as well and find some new works to add to your own holiday musical rotations.)