Handel in the Hilltowns: "Messiah" as an Exercise in Community Music-making

On the last Sunday of December we traveled to my hometown of Cummington, Massachusetts, to participate in the 54th annual sing-through of George Frideric Handel's popular oratorio, Messiah. The sing is always held on the first Sunday after Christmas in the Village Church on Main Street in town. The deal here, for those unfamiliar with the concept of a Messiah sing, is that it is not a performance, but rather an exercise in participatory, informal music-making. Professional, or quasi-professional, vocal soloists are engaged to sing the recitatives and arias, and a pro conductor leads the proceedings. But all the singers in the chorus and all the instrumentalists are folks who just show up and sight-read through the score. They don't tackle the entirety of Handel's work, but do all of Part One (that deals with the Nativity) and selected arias and choruses from Parts Two and Three. Hey, ya gotta do "The Trumpet Shall Sound" (from Part Three), and end the proceedings with the "Hallelujah" chorus (from Part Two)! In spite of it not really being a performance, there is always a small audience of appreciative folks who come just to listen and enjoy.

This was our fourth straight year of traveling from our home in southern Maine in order to take part. Cummington is in the western part of Massachusetts, roughly equidistant from the borders of Vermont, New York, and Connecticut. It is one of the towns that comprise the somewhat loosely-defined area known as the Hilltowns, that includes communities in parts of Hampshire, Berkshire, Hampden, and Franklin counties. All the Hilltowns are small, with populations in the range of 1,000-2,500 people. Historically, the demographic make-up of the Hilltowns has consisted primarily of folks of old Yankee stock -- farmers, tradesmen, loggers, practitioners of other blue-collar jobs -- but it is an area that also has nurtured a fair share of folks engaged in more creative and intellectual pursuits.

Bryant's birthplace in Cummington

Cummington in particular has produced or attracted a good many artists, poets, musicians, and writers over the years. The town's most famous native son was William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), poet and long-time editor of the New York Post. More recently, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017), one of the most esteemed American poets of the 20th century, made his home there. Many young musicians have spent productive summers honing their skills at Greenwood Music Camp, established in Cummington in 1940. During my youth, the now-defunct Cummington School of the Arts (later: ...Community...) provided a congenial environment for mature artists and musicians to immerse themselves in their craft for a month or so.

Though the arts are by no means the defining cultural strain in town, the strong, long-standing presence and acceptance of art and music in the community has permitted an event like the annual Messiah sing to exist as a tradition for over half a century. But I get ahead of myself...

It is about a four-hour drive from our home in southern Maine to Cummington. When we go there for the Messiah sing we always work in some visits with family members in the area, and celebrate our January 1st wedding anniversary with a nice dinner in Northampton or Amherst (where we spend a night) in order to make the trek worthwhile. This year we enjoyed nice weather and hassle-free traveling in both directions.

We got to Cummington far enough in advance of the 4:00 p.m. start time of the sing to spend a couple of hours catching up with cousins at the family farm before heading to the church. There's always a strong turnout for the sing and parking around the church can get tight, so an early arrival is warranted. We were delighted to snag a spot right behind the building. The back door leads directly to the church kitchen and on into the vestry, where preparations for the post-sing reception were already in full swing.

We threaded our way through the group of busy workers, stopped briefly to exchange some pleasantries with old friends, then staked out good spots in the singers' areas in the sanctuary--Sally with the altos, me with the basses. We visited a bit with our section neighbors while the place began to fill up. Most of those around me were long-time veterans of Cummington Messiah sings. I was pleased to make the acquaintance of a man several years my senior from the neighboring town of Plainfield who had known my late mother, not only from previous Messiahs but also from the Hilltown Choral Society (HCS), a long-standing community choir. The Messiah sing in many ways is an outgrowth of the HCS, a subject to which I shall return in a bit.

 The Cummington Village Church is a lovely old building, dedicated in 1839. It is typical, in many ways, of other New England village churches, but not without its distinctive features. Foremost among these is the beautiful trompe-l'œil painting on the back wall of the sanctuary. This was added in 1951, in memory of Eugene W. Lyman (1872-1948), a Cummington native and noted theologian; he taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York for many years. The painting is the work of New York artist and interior decorator Lyman Martin (1928-1992).

Another noteworthy feature of the church is the lovely tracker action organ. It was built c. 1880 by Pomplitz and Company of Baltimore, Maryland; it is their Opus 214. Cummington is not its first home; it was installed initially in the Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church in Staunton, Virginia in 1881 and moved to Cummington in 1903. It was a gift to the town from Worcester Reed Warner (1846-1929), another native son, who was a successful mechanical engineer and businessman. It is a beautiful, small gem of an instrument.

The organ survived an effort in 1961, at a time when it needed repairs, to have it junked and replaced with a fully-electronic instrument (!!!!). Fortunately, saner heads prevailed and money for repairs was found. In the late 1970s a major fund-raising campaign was mounted in order to pay for a complete renovation of the instrument. Messrs. Czelusniak et Dugal, Inc. were engaged for the task and did a wonderful job. It was re-dedicated at the time of the town's bicentennial celebration in 1979. Regrettably, the organ was not played at this year's Messiah. Scuttlebutt had it that no organist was available to play that day. Conductor Gregory Hayes (who has taught at Greenwood Music Camp for many years) provided the continuo parts for the recitatives and arias on a portative organ. Nice, but not quite the same.

In earlier times the church would be packed to the doors with singers on Messiah day, and there were plenty of good string players on hand. For the past couple of years, however, I've been more than a little dismayed to note a drop-off in the number of participants. I don't know that anyone keeps a precise tabulation but the ranks had definitely thinned out from what I remember them to have been in the mid-1980s. A shortage of strong string players was particularly evident. Things were better this year. We had a nearly full sanctuary of singers as well as more, and more skilled, string players--though there were still a few cringe-inducing moments when the intonation was, shall we say, somewhat less than ideal.

This year's vocal soloists were consistently strong: Kristi Spencer, soprano; Cynthia Sanner, mezzo; Dario Coletta, tenor; and Steve Curylo, bass. All have good resumes as performers and/or teachers. Special mention must be made of tenor Dario Coletta who has sung the role each of the years that we've attended. He has considerable experience singing opera and musical theater, and is simply outstanding. He works now as a stone mason in Plainfield. A wry note in the program for this year's Messiah informs us that he "also serves as the tenor section of the Plainfield Congregational Church choir." Sheldon Ross was the featured trumpet soloist on "The Trumpet Shall Sound."

As usual, a good time was had by all. Conductor Hayes kept things on track with skill, artistry, and good humor. I'm still chuckling over his admonition to the singers, before we launched into "For unto Us a Child is Born," to remember that the word "us" is, in fact, a separate word; he did not want to hear anyone singing "For unto wuss..."  As noted, this was not, nor was it intended to be, a polished performance. Speaking for myself, I missed a couple of entrances in the more difficult choruses--as did most of the guys around me! But the key feature of an event such as this is that folks come out and do it. People of all skill levels come together and make music as a body, simply for the sheer joy of doing so. Sally and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves; we look forward to taking part again next year.

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I have dim memories of the inception of the Cummington sing. The first one was held in 1964, the year that I graduated from the local elementary school. Credit for its creation lies with the late Roberta Cowell, a local woman who was the driving force behind many musical activities in the area--as well as being a very fine soprano herself. A few years earlier (1957) she had founded the aforementioned Hilltown Choral Society and served as its director well into the 1980s. She was also my first music teacher in elementary school.

According to an article by Lawrence Raab in the Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Mass.) of December 23, 1967, Mrs. Cowell had originally thought to have the HCS perform Handel's work but felt that the group was too small to do so. "Instead," Raab noted, "the conception was expanded to encompass the whole community of Cummington. Anyone who knew and enjoyed "The Messiah" [sic] was asked to the church to 'perform' it."

For many years I was under the impression that the Cummington sing was unique. Of course this is not the case, as there are countless participatory Messiah sing-throughs in the world; there is even a Wikipedia entry about such things. In fact I'm not 100% sure that the idea of an informal sing-through in Cummington was something that Mrs. Cowell invented out of whole cloth. I seem to recall reading that she was inspired by a similar event somewhere else in the country (Chicago?) but am not certain of this. In any case, starting the one in Cummington was a fairly natural extension of her work with the HCS, as another way to engage the local folks with music.

L to R: Kathy Wells, Margaret Allen

My late mother, Helen Wells, who was a long-time member of the Hilltown Choral Society, was also an early and enthusiastic supporter of the Messiah sings. She sang in them every year until late in her life. My older sister, Kathy, joined her on many occasions while she was still at home. Throughout my high school and college years my mother tried in vain to interest me in taking part. It was not until the early 1980s, when I again lived in Cummington for a couple of years that I finally decided to give it a go -- at which point I immediately regretted that I had not done so earlier! We learn too late to listen to our mothers, don't we?  

Alto section, 1967: Helen and Kathy Wells, front, far right.

A move to Tennessee in 1985 made it impractical for me to attend for many years but after relocating to southern Maine, and extolling the pleasures of the annual sing to Sally for a few Christmases, we finally got our act together and attended our first sing in 2015. We now factor a trip to Cummington on the Sunday after Christmas into our annual planning for the holiday season.

It was after taking part in my second Messiah sing (which, if I've calculated correctly, was on December 30, 1984) that I had a bit of a revelation about the importance of an event such as this. At the time I was serving as chair of the church's Music Committee. This meant that when it came time to get ready for the Messiah sing it was up to me to engage the vocal soloists, secure the conductor, line up an organist, try to get the word out to instrumentalists, arrange for the loan of vocal scores from Forbes Library in Northampton, and ensure that there would be ample staff and goodies on hand for the post-sing reception.

It also meant that I was the person who got the call the following Monday from a reporter at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, looking for material for a post-event story. I recall talking with him about the concept of the sing being a non-performance, and that although it had a few rough edges, its real value lay in the fact that it was "democratic, community music-making." I'll admit to being kinda pleased when the paper ended up using that as the pull quote that ran with a photo of folks singing that appeared on the front page the next day.

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The business of community music-making, just for the fun of it, is something about which I feel strongly. Of course, there is nothing remarkable about people playing music together primarily for their own enjoyment; it happens all the time in Irish pub sessions, at bluegrass and old-time music festivals, during after-hours sessions of jazz musicians in nightclubs, when friends gather for house parties, or when teenagers take over their parents' garages to act out their rock star fantasies. Amateur music-making, in both private and public situations, is a big part of our musical culture.

But this is Handel we're dealing with here, for Pete's sake! And a piece of music that is held in high esteem throughout much of the western world. It is typically performed in major concert halls and churches by top-caliber musicians and singers. It is by no means simple music--we're not talking 16-bar reels and jigs, or three-chord rock songs. There are high-minded critics who sniff at the whole idea of participatory sing-throughs of Messiah, and dismiss them as amateurish affronts to Handel's genius. Many classical musicians regard Messiah as a tired, over-done work that they must endure every Christmas season for the sake of a gig or two.

Nevertheless, it is unquestionably loved by, and meaningful to, lots of folks, and many (like us) derive great joy from having the opportunity to sing it. And it is not so very complex that amateurs cannot enjoy taking a stab at it. Its widespread popularity has helped make it accessible to people who otherwise would never engage with "classical" music. I see this as a Good Thing. A Very Good Thing.

In the 1967 Berkshire Eagle article mentioned earlier, writer Lawrence Raab noted that Handel tailored Messiah to the rather modest performing resources he had available for the 1741 Dublin premiere. For this reason, Raab says, the composer kept things simpler than he might have under other circumstances. He goes on to argue: "Thus, 'The Messiah' [sic] in all its greatness is particularly attractive to groups in small communities. So it may become a kind of 'folk' music, a music which people can learn and take to heart."

Well, um, no. Not quite. Speaking as a trained folklorist and traditional musician, I wouldn't go that far, or even close to that far. While there famously is no hard and fast definition of "folk music," there are a few characteristics that are more or less generally agreed on:

1. traditional tunes and songs exist in differing versions with no single, authoritative "correct" version; 
2. it is music that typically is learned and performed via oral/aural means; 
3. it is performer-based music rather than composer-based; i.e., everyone who performs traditional material re-shapes it in accordance with their own taste and abilities.

Handel's score for Messiah defines what the work is (yeah, I know, he made umpteen revisions...). People invariably sing and play it from printed music. There is no appreciable room for improvisation, except perhaps at the hands of skilled musicians who are conversant with Baroque performance practice. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, or definition, a piece of folk music.

Where Raab is on-target--and the point I want to make with this post--is that the value of an event such as the Cummington Messiah sing lies not in whatever artistic merit it may have, but in its importance to the community in which it takes place; in its role in defining the cultural life of that community. Those of us who study folk music--folklorists and ethnomusicologists--put great value on looking at music as an aspect of the culture in which it exists; indeed, ethnomusicology is often defined as the study of music in its social and cultural context. This is in contrast to the approach taken by historical musicologists, i.e. the scholars who study "classical" music. Their approach has typically been to focus on the music for its own sake; the "text" of the music, as it were, rather than the context.

Happily, this has changed within the last generation or so. Musicologists of all stripes are taking a broader view of things. Still, it is unusual for academics to include activities in "classical" music in studies of music in communities, or to take a truly inclusive approach to the study of music in place. I know of only one book that is relevant: The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town, by Ruth Finnegan, first published in 1989, and brought out in a revised edition in 2007.

A publisher's blurb for the book notes that it  "...focuses on the practices rather than the texts or theory of music, rejecting the idea that only selected musical traditions, 'great names,' or professional musicians are worth studying." Another description goes into more detail, noting that Finnegan's book "...presents in vivid detail the contrasting yet overlapping worlds of classical orchestras, church choirs, brass bands, amateur operatic societies, and amateur bands playing jazz, rock, folk, and country."

Or, as Finnegan herself puts it early on in the book (p. 6) , it is: “about what people actually do--about ‘is’ not ‘ought.’” Hear, hear!

What might I say about the broader context of music in Cummington, into which the annual Messiah sing fits? Not a great deal, I'm afraid, since I have not lived there for many years. But I have already mentioned the Hilltown Choral Society, and Greenwood Music Camp. Greenwood students and faculty (including Greg Hayes) perform in the Village Church when camp is in session in the summer. The church functions as a locus for other musical activity as well, including a popular "Friday Night Cafe" series of acoustic music concerts. A second church in town, the West Cummington Congregational Church, hosts occasional musical events as well.

There are no doubt many things musical that go on in the town of which I am not aware. The importance of much of the music-making in Cummington and in other small towns like it stems not from the fact that it does or does not represent some sort of musical excellence, but from the simple fact that people do it, that it is a vibrant and vital part of the local culture. 

In much of our writing and thinking about music we define music by place. We talk of Cape Breton fiddling, or New Orleans R&B, or Kentucky bluegrass. Perhaps we should think more about defining place in terms of the music that is made there.

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Notes on sources

I am indebted to both my mother, Helen Wells, and her mother, Ada Howes, for their tendency to hang onto things that others might have thrown away. They retained many newspaper articles and clippings about Cummington in file folders, notebooks, and boxes that have now come to me. Gram Howes in particular had a strong sense of the importance of local history. She was a long-time member of the Cummington Historical Commission and co-authored the chapter on Cummington in The Hampshire History: Celebrating 300 Years of Hampshire County Massachusetts (Northampton, Mass: Hampshire County Commissioners, 1964). I credit her with instilling in me my own strong love of local history. She would probably be pleased to know that one of her grandsons was the director of an archive for much of his professional life.

Among the newspaper pieces Gram saved are two that I found especially useful in providing background information on the church, the organ, and the local Messiah sings:
     Martha Beaver, "A Joyous Occasion for the Cummington Village Church," Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, MA), Saturday, December 31, 1966. Feature about the history of the trompe l'oeil painting in the church, and about a time when Lyman Martin had been called in to refurbish it after some necessary repair work had been done in the sanctuary. My grandmother paper clipped a hand-written note to this article that had a few other bits of useful information.
    Lawrence Raab, "Instant 'Messiah'," Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA), Saturday, December 23, 1967. Feature about the history of the Cummington Messiah sing, accompanied by several photos taken by Joel Librizzi and Michael Miller. I have shamelessly used two of their photos (of my mother and sister) here. At this time the sing was apparently held prior to Christmas; in the article Raab notes that it was held "Late last Sunday afternoon..." viz. December 17, 1967.

Two years after the 1979 overhaul of the Pomplitz organ was completed, organist Thomas Murray of Newbury, Massachusetts, performed a solo recital on the instrument. As an adjunct to the recital, the firm of Messrs. Czelusniak et Dugal, who had carried out the restoration work, prepared a marvelous 12-page program booklet that contains an extensive history of the instrument. This was enormously valuable in my research for this post.

Two histories of Cummington were also useful resources:   
     Olive Thayer, Cummington, 1779-1979. (Cummington: Souvenir Committee of the Cummington Bicentennial, [1979]). Modest history of the town. Copiously illustrated with historic postcards and other photos.
     Helen H. Foster and William W. Streeter, Only One Cummington. (Cummington, Mass: Cummington Historical Commission, 1974.) Substantial, meticulously-researched history.