On Christmas afternoon I listened to Handel’s Messiah, a classic 1966 performance with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis. The vinyl discs crackled with age. Every note is familiar and I would sing along if I could still sing, which I most definitely cannot. When the third age hits the vocal cords, it’s brutal.
I’m not a Christmas person particularly, or religious in any way. Yet the Messiah conjures memories and emotions that still move me.
They begin in 1950s Providence, where my mother, Anne Sunshine, sang for years with the Rhode Island Civic Chorale. The Chorale performed the Messiah every December, and family members of the musicians could attend the dress rehearsal for free. We would get dressed up and sit with my father to watch my mother onstage, in a white blouse and long black skirt, singing in the soprano section of the chorus. I was awed by the grand hall and booming timpani and entranced by the rose and aqua gowns of the female soloists, splashes of color against the stark black and white of the orchestra and choir.
I also sang the Messiah, though not nearly as well. Dr. Louis Pichierri, founder and conductor of the Rhode Island Civic Chorale until his death in 1972, was also director of music for the Providence Public Schools. At Classical High School in the late 1960s, I sang in the school choir under his direction. We learned the Messiah as well as Vivaldi’s Gloria and other works.
My mother died in 1999 at the age of 72. I was 45 and still working to fashion a mature bond with her, adult to adult, mother to mother. Reserved by nature, she was a hard person to know fully, and there remained layers of her thinking, emotions, and life experiences that I never got to before we ran out of time.
Music, though, connected us. She came from a musical family: her uncle, James Fassett, was music director for CBS Radio in the 1940s and 1950s, and her brother, Charles Fassett, taught music at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and led the Providence Singers, another choral group. My mom taught my dad to appreciate classical music, which hadn’t been part of his childhood, and they had a large collection of vinyl LPs. She taught me as well, and when the Messiah played on the radio, typically at Christmas, she and I would sing the soprano parts together.
There was much I didn’t know about her, and consumed with my own adolescent angst, didn’t bother to find out. Listening to the strains of Handel now, though, I think – or rather feel, or know: this is who she was.
By Christmas evening Bill and I were enjoying Manu Dibango, the Cameroonian jazz saxophonist, and the Messiah receded into memory. But I’m glad I took the time to listen to those three discs and reconnect, if just for an instant, with my mother and the music she loved.
Hi Cathy, I really enjoyed reading about your early experiences with music and the connections it's had for you. Perhaps my earliest major influence was when I was 12 and discovered an incredible church choir near where I lived. The choir director actually gave us singing lessons one day a week, operatic style. I enjoyed singing but her techniques were totally new to me. She would call on each of us to sing solo and then give us feedback. There was a lot of camaraderie in the choir, and that turned out to be the reason I went to church. There were people of all ages, including the white-haired librarian I remembered reading us books when I was little. My singing voice was not so great, but the choir director made it better. I was never a regular church goer, and didn't discover church again until much later in life (third age!) when I discovered another fantastic church choir near me in Cambridge, MA where I sang for seven years until I moved. And I really miss it. I can also report one other major experience when we were driving across the Sahara to get to Agadez. We had 3 year old James with us and I had him outfitted with a good pair of stereo headphones. He played tunes on his Fisher Price cassette player and we all sang along with him. He later became a good singer and performed publicly with the Cambridge Revels for a number of years. Music has to power to evoke special memories and soothe the soul. I listen to music a lot, mainly classical and folk. Thanks for posting your memories!
Thanks for this. I sang in the church choir with my dad, but mom always sat by herself in the congregation and listened. Sorta sad but she never complained.