Escuchando algunas trozos del Mesías, me acordé de algo que había escrito en un foro sobre música hace algún tiempo atrás y decidí -más que nada para no perderlo yo- poner aquí ese texto. El foro es en inglés, y como no tengo ganas de traducir, en inglés se queda
The Messiah has been criticized in this thread for being joyful and popular. Or at least, that such things could detract of its worth. But I do think that no sacred christian work can be really truthful to the message if they do not have those traits.
Joyful? The Messiah tell the whole story, from prophecies to birth, preaching, death and resurrection. And the resurrection is key in the end. The chief day, after all, of Easter is not Friday but Sunday. If I am not mistaken, no less an authority than Paul declared that ‘If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain’. And the message and promise of resurrection is a joyful one, and it is intended to be so. And the joy of the resurrection is very clearly communicated in the Messiah (and at the same time it communicates the proper emotions to the other stages in the story).
Popular? The christian message was not intended for kings and wise men, and humble fishermen were chosen to be the apostles. It is intended to be popular, and to have a wide appeal. A sacred christian work that does not tell anything to the man on the street has failed to communicate something essential to that faith. After all, the christian message it is not one destinated to the Club of People with Refined Musical Taste. The Messiah, a work that has been apreciated from musicians (Beethoven or Haydn as it has been mentioned already) to any poor fishermen, fulfils the universality of the message quite nicely, to say the least.
In other words, the characteristics of the Messiah are the ones that you should expect from a work than intends to communicate the christian message: To tell something about the awe that the promise of resurrection should have on you, and be able to appeal to everyone. And so, the rambling of this particular atheist about the Messiah and how true is to the Christian message ends.
.