IS HANDEL'S "Messiah" anti-Semitic? Michael Marissen makes the case in the NYT and sanctimoniously concludes that "Listeners might do well to ponder exactly what it means when, in keeping with tradition, they stand during the 'Hallelujah' chorus."

I'd be interested in reading other scholars' opinions on the budding controversy, but I'm totally underwhelmed by this argument of Marissen's:

Handel’s music makes its own contribution to the troubling theological message here. The mood of the “Hallelujah” chorus is over-the-top triumph. For the first time in “Messiah” trumpets and drums are used together [in the 'Hallelujah' chorus], although they would have been appropriate or welcome at several earlier places.

Huh? That seems almost laughably subjective.