George Friedric Handel
Painted by Balthasar Denner
Born: February 23, 1685, Halle, Prussia (Germany)
Died: April 14, 1759, London, England
NOTE: The composer was baptized under the name Georg Friederich Händel, but long before his death he adopted an English version of his name, George Frideric Handel.
Messiah
- Composed: August 22–September 14, 1741; libretto assembled by Charles Jennens from passages in the Bible
- Premiere: April 13, 1742, in a matinée at the Great Music Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin, Ireland; an open rehearsal had been held four days earlier
- Instrumentation: SATB chorus and SATB soloists, 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 trumpets, timpani, harpsichord, portative organ, strings
- CSO Notable Performances:
- First: December 1935, Eugene Goossens conducting; soloists Rose Bampton, Agnes Davis, Franz Trefger and Sherwood Kains; University of Cincinnati Oratorio Society Chorus.
- Most Recent: December 2009, Nicholas McGegan conducting; soloists Dominique Labelle, Marietta Simpson, Norman Shankle and Christòpheren Nomura; May Festival Chorus.
- Duration: approx. 108 minutes
Handel’s oratorio Messiah dates from a pivotal moment in his career. He composed his first oratorios in 1707–08, during his early residence in Rome. Not until a decade later did he essay an oratorio in English — Esther (1718) — by which time he had settled in London and achieved distinction as an opera composer. Italian-language opera would be his principal concern for a period of 36 years, during which he rode both the waves of success and the troughs of indifference that marked the topsy-turvy world of lyric theatre. By the late 1730s, however, he had his fill with the high-stress management of opera productions, and the opera he wrote for London’s 1740–41 season — Deidamia — would be his last.
Just then, he received an invitation to produce a series of concerts in Dublin in 1741, and the idea of a change of scenery appealed to him. He traveled from London to Dublin in mid-November 1741 and remained until August 13, 1742. The highpoint of his Dublin season was without a doubt the premiere of his new oratorio, Messiah. He had composed it while still in London during the late summer of 1741, over the course of about three weeks. That so great — and large — a masterpiece should have been created in so brief a span seems all but incredible to most of us, but Handel documented its progress by entering dates in his score as it unrolled.
His librettist, Charles Jennens, a well-to-do fellow-about-the-arts-world who was 15 years his junior, was pressed into service to assemble a text for the new oratorio. This he apparently did in the early summer of 1741, drawing creatively on Biblical passages from the Books of Isaiah, Haggai, Malachi, Matthew, Luke, Zechariah, John, Psalms, Lamentations, Hebrews, Romans, I Corinthians and Revelation to create a loose story comprising historical narrative about the life of Jesus and reflections about him by Christian believers. He organized the texts into three discrete sections, the first relating to the prophecy of Christ’s coming and the circumstances of his birth, the second to the vicissitudes of his life on earth and the third to the events surrounding the resurrection and the promise of redemption. With the libretto in hand, Handel leapt into action on August 22. He finished the draft of Part One on August 28, of Part Two on September 6, and of Part Three on September 12 — and then he took another two days to polish details on the whole score, which numbered 53 movements in toto.
This prodigious pace was not exceptional for Handel, and it is no more than Romantic fantasy to view it (as once was routine) as a fever of divine inspiration peculiar to the composition of Messiah. In fact, he allowed himself about a week’s rest after finishing Messiah before embarking on his next oratorio, Samson, which he wrote in the relatively leisurely span of five weeks.
Handel’s Dublin season began auspiciously with performances of several earlier works — L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; Acis and Galatea; Esther; Alexander’s Feast — which paved the way for the excitement attending the unveiling of Messiah. These consisted of an open rehearsal on April 9, 1742, and two official performances, on April 13 and June 3 (the income from the last being earmarked for the composer). The first concert was given as a benefit, organized with the assistance of the Charitable Musical Society, “For Relief of the Prisoners in the several Gaols, and for the Support of Mercer’s Hospital in St. Stephen’s-street, and of the Charitable Infirmary on the Inns Quay” (as The Dublin Journal announced a couple of weeks in advance). After the open rehearsal, The Dublin News Letter pronounced that the new oratorio “in the opinion of the best judges, far surpasses anything of that Nature, which has been performed in this or any other Kingdom.” The Journal concurred that it “was allowed by the greatest Judges to be the finest Composition of Musick that ever was heard, and the sacred Words as properly adapted for the Occasion.” It continued with advice for persons lucky enough to hold tickets for the official premiere: “Many Ladies and Gentlemen who are well-wishers to the Noble and Grand Charity for which this Oratorio was composed, request it as a Favour, that the Ladies who honour this Performance with their Presence would be pleased to come without Hoops as it will greatly encrease the Charity, by making Room for more Company.” To which it added in a follow-up article: “The Gentlemen are desired to come without their Swords’, to increase audience accommodation yet further.”
Messiah was an immense success, and it launched Handel on his career shift to become a composer of oratorios. The reputation of Messiah spread quickly to London, which waited nearly a year after its premiere to hear it. That event finally took place on March 23, 1743, at Covent Garden; and, it being London, a measure of controversy crept into the proceedings, perhaps fueled the slightest bit by Jennens, who in the meantime had experienced a falling-out with Handel. The Universal Spectator ran an article, coinciding with the London premiere, wondering emphatically about the propriety of performing such a sacred work in any setting but a church:
An Oratorio either is an Act of Religion, or it is not; if it is, I ask if the Playhouse is a fit Temple to perform it in, or a Company of Players fit Ministers of God’s Word, for in that Case such they are made … In the other Case, if it is not perform’d as an Act of Religion, but for Diversion and Amusement only (and indeed I believe few or none go to an Oratorio out of Devotion), what a Prophanation of God’s Name and Word is this, to make so light Use of them?
Many a London wag lent his voice to the ensuing fray, either in poetry or prose; but it all added up to a tempest in a teapot, and audiences seem to have enjoyed Handel’s “New Sacred Oratorio” despite the altercation it provoked.
The work was performed often in Handel’s lifetime, and from 1742 to 1754 he provided alternate versions for some of its numbers, usually to accommodate the strengths of specific singers in revivals. This leaves modern conductors with choices about which versions of individual pieces to perform — and, indeed, which numbers to cut, since the running-time of the “complete” Messiah can prove forbidding to audiences. Typically, Part One is offered in its entirety, with judicious cuts being made in Parts Two and Three, as in this performance.
—©James M. Keller
James M. Keller, for 25 years the program annotator of the San Francisco Symphony and the New York Philharmonic, is the author of Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford University Press).