Messiah (1751 version)
'Handel says he
will do nothing next Winter, but I hope I shall persuade him to set
another Scripture collection I have made for him… I hope he will
lay out his whole Genius and Skill upon it, that the Composition may
excell all his former Compositions, as the Subject excells every other
Subject. The Subject is Messiah…' -- Charles Jennens (10 July 1741)
Handel wrote Messiah in anticipation of a visit to Dublin in 1741. At
the invitation of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he organized two
series of concerts at the New Music Hall, Fishamble Street, during the
winter season of 1741-42. He saved Messiah till last, performing it for
the first time on 13 April 1742 to rapturous applause. Messiah fared
less well, however, in London the following year. Audiences seem to
have preferred his other new oratorio, Samson, and many people
profoundly disapproved of biblical words being sung in a common
theatre, which was where Handel performed most of his oratorios. Even
Handel's librettist, Charles Jennens, was less than enthusiastic: 'His
Messiah has disappointed me, being set in great hast[e], tho' he said
he would be a year about it, & make it the best of all his
Compositions. I shall put no more Sacred Words into his hands, to be
thus abus'd'.
Although Handel made a number of attempts to revive Messiah in 1745 and
1749, it was not until 1750 that he began to perform it annually at the
end of his Lenten oratorio season at Covent Garden, repeating it a
month or so later in the chapel of the Foundling Hospital, an orphanage
of which he was a governor. From this time on 'a change of sentiment in
the public began to manifest', wrote Sir John Hawkins, and 'Messiah was
received with universal applause'. The earliest provincial performance
of Messiah was given at Oxford in April 1749 under the direction of
William Hayes, the Professor of Music, and it was rapidly taken up by
music societies in Salisbury, Bath, Bristol, Gloucester and Worcester.
Soon, the popularity of Messiah began to eclipse that of Handel's other
oratorios, and during the nineteenth century it became almost a
national institution, increasingly performed by gargantuan forces
– choirs of 4000 were not unheard of – providing a
convenient mouthpiece for the Victorian doctrines of progress and
social amelioration.
Although Handel famously completed the first draft of Messiah in a mere
24 days, he never really stopped working on it, constantly amending and
updating the score to suit the singers available and the circumstances
of each new performance he gave. This means that there is no one
definitive version of the work for us to follow today. The present
recording takes its lead from Handel's performances of 18 April and 16
May 1751, which he gave at Covent Garden Theatre and the chapel of the
Foundling Hospital. Inspired by the abilities of his alto soloist, the
Italian castrato Gaetano Guadagni, in 1750 Handel had written brand new
settings of the arias 'But who may abide' and 'Thou art gone up on
high', both of which he retained, along with Guadagni, in 1751. The
other notable feature of Handel's Foundling Hospital performance
followed here is the use of boy trebles for both the top line of the
chorus and for the soprano arias, including the much-loved 'I know that
my redeemer liveth' but excluding 'Rejoice, greatly', allocated by
Handel to the tenor. Handel and his contemporaries – like William
Hayes in Oxford – often substituted outstanding choristers for
their soprano soloist at certain key moments in the work, like the
Nativity sequence beginning 'There were shepherds abiding in the
field'. The link with a choral foundation was consolidated in Handel's
tenor and bass soloists, John Beard and Robert Wass, both of whom had
close connections with the Chapel Royal, just as the tenor and bass
soloists in this recording have close links with an Oxford foundation.
Charles Jennens's libretto for Messiah is very different from the texts
of Handel's other oratorios. Instead of telling a dramatic story as in
Samson, with soloists and chorus representing particular characters,
the text of Messiah is almost exclusively concerned with prophecy and
meditation. The words are drawn entirely from the Authorised Version of
the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Nevertheless, Jennens's
biblical compilation was judicious and his overall design very strong.
By skilfully combining Old and New Testament texts he was able to
illustrate the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah in
the events related in the Gospels. He divided the oratorio into three
parts. Part I embraces the prophecies of Christ's coming, the
Annunciation and the Nativity. Part II is concerned with Christ's
Passion, Resurrection and Ascension, the dissemination of the Gospels,
and a final ecstatic view of the kingdom of God. Part III (based on the
Anglican Burial Service) celebrates Christ's Resurrection and the
immortality of the Christian soul made possible through Christ's
Redemption.
Notwithstanding its subject and text, Messiah is not, in the accepted
sense, a sacred work. Jennens himself called it simply 'a fine
Entertainment', and Handel only ever performed it in a consecrated
building when he mounted his annual charity concerts in the chapel of
the Foundling Hospital. This, however, did not prevent its ultimate
sanctification by an adoring public convinced that by attending a
performance of the work they were themselves participating in an act of
worship. In Bristol in 1758 the young John Wesley heard Messiah on one
of the rare occasions when it was performed in church and commented
ironically that he doubted 'if that congregation was ever so serious at
a sermon as they were during this performance'. Yet there is absolutely
no evidence at all that Handel himself ever intended an evangelical
purpose. If anything, he intended a charitable one, having performed
Messiah regularly throughout this career for the benefit of the poor
and needy. Ultimately, Handel's purpose was to delight and charm his
listeners; as a writer in the Dublin Journal wrote after the first
performance: 'Words are wanting to express the exquisite Delight it
afforded to the admiring crowded audience. The Sublime, the Grand, and
the Tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestick and moving Words,
conspired to transport and charm the ravished Heart and Ear.'
CITATION
"Messiah: 1751 Version" Simon Heighes. 2006.
Naxos Liner Notes for Handel Messiah.
<http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.570131-32&catNum=
570131&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English#>
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