Overture Magazine: 2017-2018 Season November-December 2017 | Page 33

HANDEL’S MESSIAH
Jennens, a wealthy landowner and
literary figure who was a longtime
friend of the composer’s and had created
texts for several other Handel oratorios.
But Handel, devoutly religious as well
as worldly, responded with a burst of
almost miraculous creative energy to
the words Jennens had prepared for
him. Beginning his work on August 22,
1741, he completed the two-and-a-half-
hour oratorio in just over three weeks.
Besides inspiration from God, he also
had a little practical assistance in this
huge task: like most Baroque composers
(Bach included), he did not hesitate to
borrow from earlier works if they were
suitable for use. Three of the choruses
in Part I —“He shall purify,” “His yoke
is easy” and even the famous “For unto
us a child is born”— are based on music
he’d originally composed as Italian
vocal duets.
Messiah was introduced to the world
in Dublin, Ireland in 1742 during Holy
Week (the tradition of performing it
during the Christmas season is fairly
recent). At the invitation of the Duke
of Devonshire, the Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, Handel had been presenting
concerts of his works there since the
previous November and winning the
kind of warm respo nse that had been
eluding him in London. On that
Tuesday, Neal’s Musick Hall was packed
beyond its capacity; audience members
had been specifically requested to leave
their swords and hoop skirts at home in
order to fit more people into the hall!
The Dublin audience responded with
enormous enthusiasm to the new work,
and another performance was quickly
scheduled. But when Handel brought
Messiah to London in March 1743,
attendance was disappointing and
the critics were unkind. A subsequent
Handel oratorio, Samson, was much
preferred. Much of Messiah’s failure
was caused by a heated controversy that
broke out in the city as to whether such
a serious sacred subject ought to be
presented as “entertainment” in secular
concert halls. Receiving few subsequent
performances, the oratorio went back
on Handel’s shelf.
By 1749 when Handel was 64, the
trustees of London’s Foundling Hospital
invited him to present Messiah there at
a charitable fundraising concert. This
time the oratorio aroused no controversy,
more than 1,000 people attended and
for the first time, Messiah enjoyed a
London triumph. From then on, annual
performances during the Lenten season
became a London tradition, soon
spreading throughout Europe. Now
Handel was finally acknowledged as
England’s leading musical citizen, and he
lived long enough — until 1759 — to be
able to savor the success of the work he
loved so dearly.
Listening to Messiah
Messiah’s heroic journey is divided into
three parts. Part I revolves around the
Old Testament prophecies (emphasizing
the Book of Isaiah) of the Messiah’s
coming and culminates with his birth
as told in the Gospel of Luke. Indeed,
more of Messiah’s text is drawn from
the Old Testament than the New, and,
apart from the Nativity story, the Gospel
histories are seldom used. Thus, the
emphasis falls on the broader meaning of
Christ’s redemption of the human race
rather than on the details of Jesus’ life.
Part II meditates on human sinfulness,
the Messiah’s rejection and suffering
and his sacrifice to redeem humankind;
it concludes with that famous song of
praise and triumph, the “Hallelujah”
Chorus. Finally moving into the New
Testament, Part III tells of the Messiah’s
vanquishing of death and the promise of
everlasting joy for the believer.
Handel did not leave behind a
definitive version of Messiah; instead, he
reworked numbers and re-assigned arias
to different voice categories depending on
the soloists available for each performance.
Messiah’s solo sections are divided between
recitatives, which place greater emphasis
on delivery of the words, and arias, in
which musical values and the showcasing
of the singer’s technical prowess take
precedence. The tenor’s two opening
numbers are a good example: “Comfort
Ye, My People” is an accompanied
recitative and “Every Valley” is an aria.

Perhaps the most stunning sequence
in Part I is the juxtaposition of the bass
soloist’s aria, “The people that walked in
darkness,” with the beloved chorus, “For
unto us a child is born.” In a marvelous
example of musical text painting, the
bass literally wanders in a chromatically
confused maze in the dark key of B minor.
The “great light” for which he yearns is
then joyfully revealed in G major as the
chorus salutes Jesus’ birth.
All the choruses, including the
“Hallelujah,” demonstrate Handel’s
exhilarating technique of mixing
powerful homophonic or chordal
utterances (“Mighty! Counselor!”) with
a more intricate polyphonic style in
which each voice part pursues its own
elaborately decorated line (“For unto
us a child is born”). The origins of the
ritual of standing for the “Hallelujah”
Chorus are rather misty. Scholars
believe that the Prince of Wales may
have stood up when he attended that
historic London performance in 1749.
Certainly by 1780, everyone in the
audience was following King George
III’s lead in rising for Handel’s mighty
hymn of praise.
Perhaps even exceeding “Hallelujah”
in majesty and joy is the magnificent
chorus “Worthy is the Lamb” that closes
Part III, the shortest of the three sections
but also the one most densely packed
with the oratorio’s greatest sequences
(the soprano’s serenely beautiful
statement of faith, “I Know that my
Redeemer Liveth”; the bass’ hair-raising
proclamation of the Final Judgment,
based on First Corinthians, “The
Trumpet Shall Sound,” with its glorious
trumpet accompaniment). “Worthy
is the Lamb” itself is capped with an
“Amen” chorus on an epic scale worthy
of the masterpiece it closes — unfurling
in grand sweeps some of the finest,
most inspired choral counterpoint this
Baroque master ever devised.
Instrumentation: Two oboes, bassoon,
contrabassoon, two trumpets, timpani,
harpsichord, organ and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 2017
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