When I was in high school, a new music teacher came to town. He was fresh out of college and full of ambition. But here he was, stuck in a very rural community where people didn't put up with (as they called it) "long-haired music," either from the Beatles or Beethoven.

Still, he was determined to teach us good music. We were going to sing selections from Handel's Messiah for our Christmas concert. Most of us had never heard of George Frideric Handel, and when we first tried to sight-read through the selections we became convinced we didn't like his music. It was too hard, too complicated. More than that, Handel wouldn't allow us to sing simple harmonies; no, he created different parts for each voice, and we in the bass section weren't able to hide all our typical mistakes when Handel and…