Handel-ing Music Appreciation

George Friedrich Handel, expat German,  self made Briton, is, one of my favorite composers so I was glad to find him allotted for our composer study.

Naturally, Handel is synonymous with his renowned Messiah Oratorio and his Water-Music composition but it has been so fascinating to study his other works, including his major operas and oratorios.

This is how we conducted Music Appreciation/ Composer Study.  We would usually read a little about Handel; his life, his story, his works and then we would listen.  We didn’t have to understand all the music and all the words but we were awed at the orchestra, the brilliance of the composition, the depth of the voices that sounded out those notes!

Whenever we had Nature Study art work or written narrations, we listened to Handel’s music.  Ambleside had a wonderful selection available that we could listen to while we were doing artist study, sometimes while we ate breakfast, at recess, occasionally while  doing math worksheets or while undertaking craft work. Some mornings they cheerfully awoke to the melodies beckoning them into the day!  The miracle was they were beginning to identify the pieces and distinguish Handel’s style and music from the other composers we know.

The other day Brandon was humming a tune.  “What’s that you’re humming?” I asked, thinking it sounded like one of Bach’s pastoral pieces.  “It’s Let Me Lament, Mom.” He said seriously and continued to hum his way down the stairs.  I had to smile! The opera Rinaldo had found it’s mark!  Here was my all-boy frogs, snails and puppy dog tails child connecting with a 1711 classical composition!  Bill St. Cyr says that children don’t need to be exposed to the contemporary, that will happen on it’s own.  He says children can become attached to a higher aesthetic and be open to cultivate tastes that are not the shallow norm and that this is an important aspect of education.

Last week I caught Ria and Brandon with my i-pod trying to sing with gusto and belt out the HAH- lelujah’s with the choir!  I don’t know very many 13 and 10- year olds with a genuine appreciation for classical music.  It made me so very happy.  It brought back precious memories of my own childhood.  I can still feel the cool floor as my  sister and I lay on our stomachs, inspecting every detail of my father’s LP record cover, while Handel’s strains and choral voices flowed and echoed through our home; filling us with wonder and longing, purifying the atmosphere and soaking into our very senses!  I am so thrilled that my children can have that too.

Ambleside Schools International provided me with a great playlist and I also I had a few albums of my own.   Youtube has been a wonderful provision and a  quick low-down on the major composers and their compositions can be found here as well.

Most times we think children need to have only chipmunk voices and cutesy songs and rhymes.  That they can be elevated to appreciate the finer arts and depths of the classical is surprisingly well within their grasp, and is a joy they should not be deprived of but rather encouraged to possess.