His book, “The Holy or the Broken” is a full-blown study of the song’s path to widespread success and the life of its composer, who was born into a prominent Jewish family in Montreal. Get The AJT Newsletter by email and never miss our top stories Light, who is Temple Sinai’s Scholar in Residence next Shabbat, will speak on “Unlocking the Mystery of Hallelujah.” “It’s about our relationship with the transcendent and with other people, how we breach those relationships, and sever them, and yet still we have to come back to hallelujah.Now, Temple Sinai and the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival have invited music critic and author Alan Light to discuss the complex and often obscure work. “He articulates in the song what we know about ourselves,” she said. And it’s about Samson, who, instead of saving his people from a hostile army, runs off with Delilah, who cuts his hair, leaving him powerless.īut ultimately, the song is about all of us – our failings, our imperfections, and our desire to have a relationship with the unknowable divine, said author Marcia Polly.
The song is about David, who consorts with Bathsheba, and orchestrates her husband’s death so he can marry her.
“The focus is not on the word any more it’s really on playing with sound and virtuosity.”ĩ best gifts from Hong Kong brands for your Christmas shoppingīut by far the most popular and famous use of hallelujah in popular music is Leonard Cohen’s haunting and frequently covered Hallelujah, written in 1984. “Because it’s only one word and it has that final long ‘ah,’ it inspired composers to write very beautiful, almost instrumental lines that put celebration and the sound of music in the foreground,” he said.
The word has also offered composers and vocalists the opportunity to use the voice in unusual ways, Rathey said. “Hallelujah is almost music already, even without a musical setting.” “I must say, personally, hallelujah sounds so much more beautiful than simply just ‘Praise the Lord,’” Rathey said. Markus Rathey, a professor of early Christian music at Yale University, said it suggests the word was already charged with an emotion that transcended its linguistic meaning.
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