BOSTON. At 207 years old, The Handel & Haydn Society is a venerable cultural institution even by the standards of this history-rich city, a fact that commends it to long-time supporters. “My father supported them, and my grandfather and great-grandfather before him,” says Asa Winthrop IV, a retired investment advisor. “Once they get their hooks into you, they don’t let go.”
The Handel & Haydn Society
But there is concern that the organization, referred to colloquially as “H&H,” isn’t keeping pace with the times as its donors and subscribers age. “Yes we have young people at our concerts,” says Winnie Finstead, heiress to the Finstead Picture Hook fortune. “For some reason they congregate behind the counters at the gift shop and the concession stand.”
That “greying” of the society’s revenue sources caused the board to bring in Institutional Focus, a non-profit consulting firm, which advised the group to update its “playlist,” a term that at first went over the heads of trustees. “What did she say?” Winthrop asked Finstead. “PLAYLIST,” said Emily Witherbee, the Vice President assigned to the project, in a forceful, projecting voice. “It’s the music you see on your program when you open it up.”
“Oh, okay, I get it,” Winthrop replied. “So what are you proposing?”
“I thought we’d stick with Handel’s ‘Messiah’–” Witherbee began.
“Good!” Finstead exclaimed.
“But do it with chipmunk voices.”
“What?”
“You know–high-pitched and squeaky, like Alvin and the Chipmunks.”
“Alvin and the Chipmunks,” Winthrop mused, looking off into the distance. “I seem to recall . . . something about that.”
“Late 1950s, it was all the rage,” Witherbee explained. “Kids loved it.”
“But those people aren’t kids anymore,” Finstead pointed out. “They’d be in their 60s by now.”
“But that’s younger than your average member,” Witherbee said. “We have more oxygen tanks in the aisles than a troop of Navy SEALS.”
A chipmunk craze first swept the nation in 1958 with the release of “The Chipmunk Song,” supposedly sung by three chipmunks–Alvin, Simon, and Theodore–and their human adoptive father, David “Dave” Seville. The high-pitched voices of the “chipmunk” singers were produced by recording normal-pitched signers at 33 and a third rpm, then playing them back at 45 rpm. The U.S. divorce rate skyrocketed in 1959 as parents driven mad by children imitating the song turned to drink and drugs to deal with the stress.
“We can’t replicate that technology in a live setting,” H&H concertmistress Evelyn de Outgebow said to Witherbee when the concept was explained to her. “I suppose we could have our singers inhale helium on stage.”
“That would be fun!” Witherbee exclaims. “You could use any leftover gas to make balloon animals.”
And so the stage is set for a historic performance tonight at Symphony Hall, where the society’s chorus has assembled this afternoon for one final rehearsal. Alphonse Guillard steps to the microphone, inhales a deep draught of helium, and then “tries out his pipes” as the men in the chorus like to say.
“hallelujah . . . hallelujah,” he sings in a voice that is somewhere between a whistle and a squeaky door. “hallelujah, hallelujah–hal-ay-lu-yah!”