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Composers as Works of Art

Two Mystic Visions: Botticelli’s Mystic Nativity and Handel’s Messiah

Botticelli’s twelve angels hold hands in a mystic circle of dance. Handel’s sopranos climb music’s ladder step by step towards the heavens.* Three angels, three men, embrace on earth. Every voice breaks out in a dancing, leaping phrase–“And he shall reign forever”—treated polyphonically while punctuated with energetic, triumphant Hallelujahs. Mary and Jesus painted larger than […]