Messiah (1741)
George Frideric Handel
Born February 23, 1685 in Halle, Germany
Died April 14, 1759 in London
George Frideric Handel’s sacred oratorio Messiah is without
question one of the most popular works in the choral/orchestral
repertoire today. In what has become an indispensable Christmas
tradition, amateur and professional musicians in almost every city and
town throughout the country perform this work as a seasonal
entertainment, and are rewarded with the satisfaction of taking part in
one of the great communal musical events. The text for Messiah
was selected and compiled from the Authorized (King James) Version of
the Bible by Charles Jennens, an aristocrat and musician/poet of modest
talent and exceptional ego. With Messiah, Jennens seems to have outdone
himself in compiling a libretto with profound thematic coherence and an
acute sensitivity to the inherent musical structure. With the finished
libretto in his possession, Handel began setting it to music on August
22, 1741, and completed it 24 days later. He was certainly
working at white-hot speed, but this didn’t necessarily indicate
he was in the throes of devotional fervor, as legend has often
stated. Handel composed many of his works in haste, and
immediately after completing Messiah he wrote his next oratorio,
Samson, in a similarly brief time-span.
The swiftness with which Handel composed Messiah can be partially
explained by the musical borrowings from his own earlier compositions.
For example, the melodies used in the two choruses “And He shall
purify” and “His yoke is easy” were taken from an
Italian chamber duet Handel had written earlier in 1741, “Quel
fior che all’ alba ride.” Another secular duet,
“Nò, di voi non vo’ fidarmi,” provided
material for the famous chorus “For unto us a Child is
born,” and the delightful “All we like sheep” borrows
its wandering melismas from the same duet. A madrigal from 1712,
“Se tu non lasci amore,” was transformed into a duet-
chorus pair for the end of the oratorio, “O Death, where is thy
sting,” and “But thanks be to God.” In each
instance, however, Handel does more than simply provide new words to
old tunes. There is considerable re- composition, and any frivolity
that remains from the light-hearted secular models is more than
compensated for by the new material Handel masterfully worked into each
chorus.
Over-enthusiastic “Handelists” in the 19th century
perpetuated all sorts of legends regarding the composition of
Messiah. An often-repeated story relates how Handel’s servant
found him sobbing with emotion while writing the famous
“Hallelujah Chorus,” and the composer claiming, “I
did think I did see all Heaven before me and the great God
Himself.” Supposedly Handel often left his meals untouched during
this compositional period, in an apparent display of devotional
fasting and monastic self-denial. Present-day historians more familiar
with Handel’s life and religious views tend to downplay these
stories. It’s been suggested that if Handel did indeed have
visions of Heaven while he composed Messiah, then it was only in the
same manner in which he visualized the Roman pantheon of gods while he
composed his opera Semele. Handel’s religious faith was sincere,
but tended to be practical rather than mystical.
The tradition of performing Messiah at Christmas began later in the
18th century. Although the work was occasionally performed during
Advent in Dublin, the oratorio was usually regarded in England as an
entertainment for the penitential season of Lent, when performances of
opera were banned. Messiah’s extended musical focus on
Christ’s redeeming sacrifice also makes it particularly suitable
for Passion Week and Holy Week, the periods when it was usually
performed during Handel’s lifetime. But in 1791, the
Cæcilian Society of London began its annual Christmas
performances, and in 1818 the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston gave
the work’s first complete performance in the US on
Christmas Day—establishing a tradition that continues to the
present. The University Musical Society is a direct result of this
tradition. In 1879, a group of local university and townspeople
gathered together to study Handel’s Messiah; this group assumed
the name “The Choral Union” and, in 1880, the members of
the Choral Union established the University Musical Society.
Following the pattern of Italian baroque opera, Messiah is divided into
three parts. The first is concerned with prophecies of the
Messiah’s coming, drawing heavily from messianic texts in
the Book of Isaiah, and concludes with an account of the Christmas
story that mixes both Old and New Testament sources. The second part
deals with Christ’s mission and sacrifice, culminating in the
grand “Hallelujah Chorus.” The final, shortest section is
an extended hymn of thanksgiving, an expression of faith beginning with
Job’s statement “I know that my Redeemer liveth” and
closing with the majestic chorus “Worthy is the Lamb” and a
fugal “Amen.” In its focus on Christ’s sacrifice.
Messiah resembles the great Lutheran Passions of Schütz and Bach,
but with much less direct narrative and more meditative commentary on
the redemptive nature of the Messiah’s earthly mission. Handel
scholar Robert Myers suggested that “logically Handel’s
masterpiece should be called Redemption, for its author celebrates the
idea of Redemption, rather than the personality of Christ.”
For the believer and non-believer alike, Handel’s Messiah is
undoubtedly a majestic musical edifice.
But while a truly popular favorite around the world, Messiah aspires to
more than just a reputation as an enjoyable musical event. After an
early performance of the work in London, Lord Kinnoul congratulated
Handel on the “noble entertainment” he had recently brought
to the city. Handel is said to have replied, “My Lord, I should
be sorry if I only entertained them; I wished to make them
better.” Certainly Messiah carries an ennobling message to
people of all faiths and credos, proclaiming “peace on earth, and
goodwill towards men”— a message that continues to be
timely and universal.
CITATION
"Program Notes" Luke Howard. 2009.
UMS Choral Union Program Notes for Handel Messiah.
<http://www.ums.org/assets/programbooks/Messiah.pdf>
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