WAFT HER, ANGELS, THROUGH THE SKIES

Sometimes I'm not entirely sure what exact part of me hears a sublime piece of music first - my ear or my heart. Could it be the heart is quicker than the ear in this respect? Of course, logically it has to be the ear, but why then does it sometimes feel as if it's my heart that first alerts my conscious mind to become aware of the beautiful sounds I'm listening to. I know, I know - 'listening to' but you get my point.

A few days ago, I found my heart suddenly beating faster in that same way one does when falling in love for the first time as a teenager and was prompted to sigh in a Merchant Ivory type of way as the familiar sound of Handel generously filled the space I'd walked into. This involuntary transcendence came by complete surprise and I felt immediately transformed by the wondrous music that made me somehow graceful in my mind, body and spirit (a rare thing for me). I've often thought that Handel offers a natural cure for all varieties of mental health problems. If I had one policy for this country it would be that Handel's music should be handed out to the general public (free of charge) by the NHS and amplified in public spaces to soothe the savage beasts that roam amongst us and deep within.

'Waft Her, Angels, Through The Sky' from Act 3, Scene 1 of Handel's 'Jephtha' sounded just like something I'd heard many times before by the composer but on repeat listening to it I realised it was, in fact, completely new to me. With fading eyesight, Handel wrote 'Jeptha' as his very last oratorio and set his music to a libretto by Rev Thomas Morell depicting the bible story of 'Jeptha in Judges' (Chapter 11). The 1751 work by Handel involves an over zealous Jephtha vowing to God that if he is successful in his victory leading the Israelites in battle against the Ammonites he will sacrifice the first creature he meets on his return journey home. In a cruel twist of fate he is met by his daughter, Iphis but while the distraught Jeptha wrestles with his conscience over his awful promise, an angel arrives to prevent the sacrifice on proviso that Iphis devotes herself to the almighty, a happy alternative to the grim original version of the story where Iphis is eventually killed.

Unlike my original assumption that the aria (which had got my heart all a flutter) was something to do with elegant ladies on tree swings, casually throwing off their dainty shoes into the air for admiring suitors to catch just like in the painting 'The Swing' by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (see above), 'Waft Her, Angels' is actually about Jeptha preparing to kill his own daughter, praying that she will be carried to heaven after he has undertaken the awful sacrifice. This is what I truly love about opera and oratorios. You can have the most ethereal of texture for an aria with the heaviest of subtext just as if a bitter pill has been disguised as a sweet fruit.

Special mention should also go to the beautiful singing of Mark Padmore in the performance I first caught ears (heart?) on who is never anything less than perfect when delivering his sublime vocal art.

If this is what exquisite anguish sounds like, no wonder I relate so easily.

I'm all about exquisite anguish.