Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner.
We are in the middle of publishing a three-part series on George Friderick Handel's Messiah,
and I'm slipping into the feed today with a Messiah bonus episode.
Let me tell you how this one came about.
Over the past several years, as I have become addicted to this piece of music,
I attended several performances by the New York Philharmonic.
The playbill for these performances reads, Handel's Messiah, presented by Gary W.
Parr.
I got to wondering what it means for a performance to be presented by a particular person,
and I especially got to wondering who is Gary W.
Parr, so I tracked him down.
It turns out that he used to be the chairman of the Philharmonic's board of directors,
and he's still a member of the board, which officially makes him a patron of the arts.
Not quite the same kind of patron that King George II was to handle, but You get the idea.
The conversation you're about to hear between Gary Parr and myself goes in some interesting directions.
I'd asked our archivist how many years have we performed the Messiah?
It's decades upon decades.
Just because we've done it and because it is a tradition is no reason to continue.
You should only continue if it's a good idea.
Is it a good idea for the Philharmonic to keep performing Messiah?