Bossa Nova Hallelujah
Since September, I have had one particular song stuck in my head: the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. I am the first to say it’s an amazing song, but that’s an amazingly long time to have it on replay in your brain. It was a Wednesday afternoon in September, when my son, Jack, climbed into the van after piano lessons. He was excited. “We picked our Christmas songs today.” He held up the sheet music.
“You picked the Hallelujah Chorus? Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he replied nonchalantly. “It’ll take some work, but I can get there by December.”
Oh, the innocence and optimism of youth. “It’ll take some work” may have been the understatement of the century. See, this wasn’t an arrangement of the song, it was the original piano version, written by Mr. Handel himself in 1741. My inner perfectionist was perplexed. Wouldn’t you rather pick a song you know you can master, and then nail it for a performance? That would have been my approach, but it was certainly not my son’s. Unless you are a professional, there is no “nailing” the Hallelujah Chorus. This is a song you have to slowly conquer, chipping away at it chord by complex chord, but even with a ton of practice it’s nearly impossible to play perfectly.
And so, Jack has been diligently practicing ever since, which explains why I’ve had this song stuck in my head over the last several weeks. In October, I was cautiously optimistic this could come together by Christmas.
By November, I wasn’t so sure.
A few weeks before the recital, we started to panic, except that by “we” I mean us parents. See, music is our thing. We know about performing, and we know that even when you have practiced enough to have something down stone cold, when you perform it, your nerves and elevated heartrate often take over, and the end result is not to the level you thought you had achieved.
Five days before the recital, even Jack realized that he needed some help. Because his abilities have now far surpassed mine on the piano, I could not actually coach him about playing the piece, but I could help him find an expert. We found a video of someone playing the song on Youtube, and and we slowed down the playback speed of it. Over and over again—enough that Youtube started interrupting us with ads—Jack played along, trying to get in the habit of not stopping, flowing through the piece and accepting rather than correcting the inevitable mistakes that occurred. We coached him to start slower than he thought he would need to, because nerves plus the enthusiasm of the song itself, would carry him like a tide towards an unmanageable tempo.
The recital was at a local assisted living facility. They had the indoor fireplace on in the lobby, and inside it was close to 80 degrees. Residents sat in chairs near the fireplace while parents stood around the edge of the room, most of us sweating. A shiny grand piano graced the foyer where the children took center stage. Boys wore slacks with nice sweaters; little girls looked lovely with their elegant velvet dresses and braided hair. From where I was standing, I could see the hands of the students as they each came up to play. My heart hurt for the ones whose fingers shook. Boy, do I remember that frustrating feeling: your brain and muscles know what they should play, but nerves cause your fingers to shake and disobey.
My two younger children completed their songs with no major hiccups. Two down, one to go. When Miss Christine—Jack’s piano teacher—called his name, I took a deep breath. I knew it was unnecessary for me to be this nervous, and it wasn’t that I wanted it to be perfect, I just didn’t want it to be a disaster. With a musical performance, you never really know what’s going to happen, and sometimes when mistakes compound and the whole thing derails, it’s all you can do just to finish the song. It’s one thing to put yourself out there for that kind of disappointment, but it’s a whole different ballgame to watch your kid put himself out there for that.
Jack began. He played softly at first, but it was a good tempo. Not too fast, which had been my biggest fear. Next thing I knew, he was into the second page and doing well. I had just started to relax and enjoy the music when the other music started.
At first, I thought it was someone’s cell phone. But then I realized with horror, it was coming from the piano itself. See, that beautiful grand piano in the foyer is actually a digital grand piano, complete with buttons directly above the keyboard. In Jack’s exuberance to execute Handel’s masterpiece, he accidentally hit one of the rhythm buttons. And not just any rhythm: he pressed the Bossa Nova button.
If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, Bossa Nova is a style of slow Samba. It was apparently popular in the 1950’s, and I’m fairly certain that no one has intentionally used it ever since. It is an incredibly cheesy-sounding rhythm, especially coming from a digital piano.
Bom, chi-chi, bom, chi-chi, bom, chi-chi-chi-chi-chi-chi
Can I pause briefly for a slight detour to ask Why?
Why does anyone need a Bossa Nova button on their piano? In what circumstances would you ever, EVER use this? And another big why…why would engineers place the rhythm buttons so close to the keyboard that you can accidentally knock them on in the middle of playing? I turned to my husband with a face that reflected my confusion. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time: because in all our preparation and in all our planning, nothing had prepared us for the Bossa Nova beat that was hijacking the beautiful symmetry of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.
Jack stopped playing. The evil Bossa Nova continued all by itself.
Bom, chi-chi, bom, chi-chi, bom, chi-chi-chi-chi-chi-chi
Mercifully, Miss Christine rushed over to help him find the Stop button. Jack was remarkably unfazed. “Um, where should I start?” he asked.
“Just go back to the beginning,” she answered.
Seriously?! We have to put ourselves through this again?!
But Jack had this. He began again, this time with no interruptions. It really is an amazing piece of music, and it was beautiful to watch all his hard work come to fruition. About three-fourths of the way through, there is a part where the music goes up and up into the stratosphere step by step, and I always think, It can’t possibly go any higher, can it? And then it does.
He sped up towards the end, and I drew in my breath, but before it got out of control, he reined it back in, and pounded out the final chords perfectly.
As the applause began, I let out the breath I had been holding. Because he was done.
Hallelujah.
[Sigh.] There’s a life lesson in this, and a bigger one than just, “Don’t micromanage your kid’s hobbies,” although that’s also a valuable lesson, and no doubt, one I need to learn. But see, Jack got thrown a curveball in this situation that none of us had remotely seen coming, and isn’t that just like life? Don’t we tend to think we know how things will go, but then we get thrown a monkey wrench that wasn’t what we were expecting at all? How could I have seen this coming?
You couldn’t. None of us can see those things ahead of time. They can range from minor inconveniences that annoy and irritate to the earth-shattering and catastrophic: the things that turn our whole world upside down. The curveballs we get thrown can wear us down and cause us to grow weary. Has this year thrown you a few curveballs? Has it left you rather weary?
Friends, if so, take heart because that was the exact frame of mind of God’s people at the very first Christmas. Four hundred years of silence had left them defeated and weary. There was no hope at that point they could rescue themselves to restore their kingdom to glory: they needed a Savior.
And God came to them. He didn’t come how they thought He would. He wasn’t even born in a house, much less a palace. He arrived humbly, clearly foreshadowing the kind of ministry He would lead: reaching out to the broken, the sick, the hurting, the marginalized, and yes, the weary. His birth marked the dawn of a new era, the Era of God With Us, and the fact that He came gives us every reason to turn our tired eyes toward Bethlehem this Christmas, because even though His people were weary, God was not done. And even though we are weary, God is still not done.
A better writer than me captured this thought perfectly in one of my favorite carols:
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoice
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
It’s not the Hallelujah Chorus, but I’ll take it.
Anne Sewall, Christmas 2022
