Mike Leghorn wrote:

>Speaking of standing, it bothers me when everyone stands up during the
>Halleluiah Chorus in the Messiah.
>
>1) It's distracting
>2) It's knee-jerk behavior
>3) Shorter people get burried in the crowd

Isn't the whole custom simply an accident?  I heard that, at the first,
or one of the first, performances, the king was in attendance and,
thinking the work was over, got up to leave, at which everybody else,
of course, also had to get up.  Or is this tale apocryphal?

Walter Meyer