Eileen Soskin understands that many concert-goers like to sit back, relax and listen to familiar music -- and perhaps even doze. She finds nothing wrong with that.
But she insists a concert will leave a more memorable mark if patrons learn something, too.
"When you've really focused on a piece of music, then you own that music, and it will never be the same again," asserts the professor of music theory and analysis at the Peabody Conservatory.
Ms. Soskin hopes to cede ownership of Georg Frideric Handel's "Messiah" to audiences attending the annual performances of the oratorio by the Handel Choir of Baltimore, beginning tomorrow night at the Church of the Redeemer in Baltimore.
One hour before each of four scheduled concerts, Ms. Soskin will present a 45-minute talk, "Handel: The Man and His Music." She hopes listeners will come away "with something they've never heard before" in the "Messiah."
But, is that really possible with a composition so ubiquitous this time of year that you hear it playing in supermarkets?
No question, says the animated speaker, who presents her lectures seated at a piano on stage, punctuating her points by playing passages on the keyboard and singing in her strong mezzo-soprano voice.
"It is a beautifully told story in music and words . . . and after all this time I always hear new things," says Ms. Soskin. She has performed the Handel masterpiece as long as she can remember -- back to her childhood in Manhattan, where she composed her first piece of music at age 5.
She has been teaching some 20 years, the last seven at Peabody and previously at the University of California at Berkeley and at San Francisco State University and the University of Iowa. She also performs as a solo singer. Although not currently a member of Handel Choir, she previously sang with the 80-member organization, as did her statistician husband, Thomas Permutt.
The Handel Choir, led by music director T. Herbert Dimmock, was formed in 1935 expressly to sing "Messiah" and boasts the longest unbroken cycle of annual performance of the composition in the United States.
"Even now, my first reaction to the music is to be swept away," says Ms. Soskin of the Handel oratorio, which tells the story of Jesus and was first performed in Dublin in 1742.
Her talk will include analysis of the piece's most familiar section, the "Hallelujah Chorus," but listeners should not fear an overly scholarly lecture. Ms. Soskin's natural-born-teacher style is easily approachable, judging from a preview of her lecture heard during an interview this week.
In talking about the complexities of the work, for example, she likens it to "a four-dimensional tennis match" where repetitive melodies and harmonies are swatted back and forth until "you end up with a whole big ball of stuff."
You won't find "big ball of stuff" defined in "The Grove Dictionary of Music," but she clearly makes the structural point.
Ms. Soskin also plans to discuss Handel the man, who she calls "the first secular composer, the first to make a living outside the church" -- despite the fact "Messiah" ranks among the most frequently performed pieces of religious music in the world.
She notes that before Handel, composers thrived only within the traditions of church music and were often supported by religious institutions.
But the German-born Handel, Ms. Soskin says, "quickly decided he didn't want that kind of life." He emigrated to England in 1712, when he was 27, and pursued a vigorous secular life, thriving largely through the broad popular appeal of his compositions.
"To Handel, the text was the core of his interest," she says. Although many authorities suggest Handel was not personally a religious man, she adds, "Actually, we really have no way to know what he believed."
Regardless, she says " 'Messiah' was one of the pieces in Handel's day that people left [concerts] singing, just like in movie theaters now, when you leave and remember the score. . . . Handel's job was to sell the music. He didn't get paid if people didn't buy tickets."
Many organizations have begun presenting performances with an audience education feature, says Ms. Soskin, "because I think people are interested -- and it also has to do with getting your money's worth. You get more from a performance this way."
While the professor notes that people are surrounded by music more than at any time in human history -- with personal stereos and the like -- we listen to it less.
"The more you know about the music you're listening to, the more you hear," she says.
Hearing the 'Hallelujah'
To hear excerpts from the "Hallelujah Chorus" of Handel's "Messiah," as performed in concert last year by the Handel Choir of Baltimore, call Sundial, The Sun's telephone information service, at (410) 783-1800. In Anne Arundel County, call 268-7736; in Harford County, 836-5028; in Carroll County, 848-0338. Using a touch-tone phone, punch in the four-digit code 6126 after you hear the greeting.