Las Vegas Weekly

Handel lends a hand

Ours is an era of balloon-boy hoaxes and birther movements; of counterfeit populism on the right and gestures that only resemble action on the left; when the fake news of The Onion gets closer to the truth of things than the real news in the Times. Everywhere you look, good, old-fashioned reality is flaking away like old paint.

This is where art can help.

George Frideric Handel died in 1759, Wolfgang Mozart in 1791, Joseph Haydn in 1809. So when the singers and musicians of the Southern Nevada Musical Arts Society launch into works by these composers—Handel’s “Coronation Anthem No. 1,” Haydn’s “Creation Mass in Bb,” Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 21”—you’ll hear music that has endured for centuries precisely because it transcends generations of short-term historical nonsense, whatever the equivalents of birthers and Glenn Becks have been. These compositions deal with the lasting stuff: beauty, majesty. I mean, does it matter that Handel’s “Anthem” was written for King George II’s coronation? George is history—he collapsed on the can, just like the other king, and who thinks of him now?—but the music still soars.

A sweet reminder that life is more than Michael Jackson headlines: reason enough to attend this concert.