In the summer of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a guest at Charles Jennens’s country house in Leicestershire—and according to popular legend, set his host’s Biblical libretto to music during his stay. A fan of Handel since buying a copy of Rodelinda in 1725, Jennens began collaborating professionally with the composer in the 1730s, writing texts for Saul (1738) and L’Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (1740). The two had a complicated working relationship—Jennens reportedly placed such pressure on Handel during the composition of Messiah that the composer suffered “a return of his Paralytick Disorder.” Jennens remained one of Handel’s staunchest supporters, however, and in a letter to a friend in July 1741, unwittingly foreshadowed Messiah’s importance:  

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, & perform it for his own Benefit in Passion Week. I hope he will lay out his whole Genius & Skill upon it, that the composition may excell all his former Compositions, as the Subject excells every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah. 

Inspiration seems to have driven Messiah’s composition from the beginning. Handel finished a rough draft of the piece in just over three weeks, starting work on August 22 and completing the first version on September 12. The composer’s personal response complements Messiah’s legendary status. After writing the “Hallelujah” chorus, Handel reportedly cried out, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself,” and upon the work’s completion, “I think God has visited me.” (Ironically, he took the famous chorus from an earlier opera, where the tune served as a hymn to Bacchus.)

Although Messiah was composed in England, its premiere took place in Dublin on April 13, 1742, as part of a series of charity concerts. Already a celebrity when he arrived in the city, Handel took with him some of his best-loved pieces—L’Allegro, Acis & Galatea, the Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, Esther, and Saul—and led the first performance of Messiah from the harpsichord. Dublin audiences were extremely enthusiastic about the new work, but London audiences were less sure. After Messiah’s debut at Covent Garden on March 23, 1743, as part of Handel’s regular theater season, one London newspaper critic complained that the subject matter wasn’t suitable for theatrical performance “by a Set of People very unfit to perform so solemn a service.” Some even called the work “sacrilegious” and “heretical.” In a famous gesture, however, King George II rose to his feet during the “Hallelujah” chorus and remained standing until its end. Some reported cynically that his foot had fallen asleep, but the King’s move turned into an enduring Messiah tradition. 

Though not as hotly contested, subsequent revivals of Messiah in 1745 and 1749 also failed to captivate London audiences. In 1750, the work’s reception changed dramatically. The previous year, Handel began a longstanding association with The Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children—also known as the Foundling Hospital—offering to mount concerts to benefit the charity. While the first of these benefits featured Music for the Royal Fireworks and the Foundling Hospital Anthem, the second, on May 1, 1750, consisted solely of Messiah. The response was overwhelming: 1,387 tickets were sold for a chapel that could comfortably seat only a thousand. Many were turned away, and carriages crowding the street reportedly created quite a traffic jam. The oratorio’s sudden popularity led to a repeat performance on May 15, for which 599 tickets were sold. From that point forward, Messiah was redeemed forever. After two more performances for the Foundling Hospital in 1751, Handel transferred the work back to the theater, and its popularity followed. Handel ended all subsequent theater seasons with at least one performance of Messiah, followed by a charity concert for the Foundling Hospital. 

Messiah has no definitive “text.” Handel himself made numerous revisions, tailoring the music to fit personnel changes. (Modern conductors often make composite versions, following this eighteenth-century tradition.) For the Foundling Hospital version, for example, Handel rewrote “But who may abide the day of his coming” and “Thou art gone up on high” for the castrato Guadagni, while in 1754, he transposed “But who may abide” for soprano. The forces used varied according to the venue as well. The Foundling Hospital performances took place in a relatively intimate chapel and likely used a chorus of six boys and twelve to fourteen men, plus an orchestra of about 30 musicians. Handel’s theater performances would have used at least double these numbers—and the Westminster Abbey performances, which began in 1784, took the notion of large-scale forces to the extreme. A 1787 advertisement for a production of Messiah stated simply, “The Band will consist of Eight Hundred Performers.”  

Inspired by these legendary productions, composers on the continent tried their hand at the revision process. Johann Adam Hiller, one of Bach’s successors in Leipzig, created a version that featured a choir of 259 and an orchestra comprised of 87 strings, eight flutes, four clarinets, 11 oboes, ten bassoons, seven trumpets, four trombones, timpani, harpsichord, and organ. The famed Viennese patron of the arts, Baron von Swieten, commissioned Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to produce a version in German that incorporated flutes, clarinets, trombones, and horns (the aria, “The Trumpets shall sound,” showcased the latter). By the nineteenth century, it had become common to allocate soloist roles to opera stars or other high-profile singers rather than to chorus members. One of the most legendary performances of Messiah took place in 1857 in Britain during the “Great Handel Festival” at Crystal Palace, with a chorus of 2000 singers and an orchestra of 500. During the 20th century, however, instrumental forces have been gradually reduced to match what scholars believe to be Handel’s original intent. 

Its storied performance history is not the only thing that makes Messiah unique. Unlike most of Handel’s other oratorios, which are essentially dramatic retellings of Biblical stories, Jennens drew the text of Messiah from the Old Testament and Book of Psalms in addition to the New Testament. He also avoids metrical or rhymed verse, on which arias generally depend. While this is not unique, the prose text creates an unusual sense of direct communication. The narrative takes place mainly in the third person, neatly sidestepping objections to direct characterization—the idea of a singing Messiah, for example, would have been considered undignified. The use of the third-person voice also allows for both the story’s presentation and philosophical reflection. 

That Jennens drew upon the Old Testament has led some scholars to take a broader view of its meaning. Old Testament prophecies originally had nothing to do with Christ and were only later interpreted as predicting his birth. (Interestingly, Jennens identified the oratorio’s topic as the “Mystery of Godliness.) Jennens’s choice of texts was likely quite deliberate. As musicologist Donald Burrows suggests, “There can be little doubt that Jennens had a specific ‘purpose’ behind his selection of texts: they support and promote a particular interpretation of Jesus as the Messiah, and assert partisan views about the Resurrection and Redemption from Sin in a period where Anglicans of Jennens’s orthodox cast found themselves in theological conflict with Deists and free-thinkers.” While Jennens may have been defending his viewpoint, he also opens the door to a more abstract idea of “Messiah,” or “anointed one,” that might have resonated differently with listeners depending on their points of view. 

While the implications of Jennens’s text sources are complex, Messiah’s structure is relatively simple. Originally in three parts, Parts I and II deal with Christ’s life on earth, crucifixion, and ascension into heaven, while Part III reflects on his redemptive sacrifice. (This performance consolidates the work into two parts.) Handel’s inspired and varied approach to the text is evident from the start. While Handel often began his oratorios with a chorus, he opens Messiah with the intensely lyrical tenor arioso, “Comfort ye, my people.” Its languid melody perfectly and intimately evokes the words as it builds to the energetic aria, “Every valley shall be exalted.” This sense of freedom continues throughout the oratorio, as Handel uses every musical style at his fingertips to transform scripture into overt drama. Often, he blends various forms in creative ways, avoiding strict alternation between recitative (speech-like song) and aria (song) and moving freely into choral punctuations. In Part 1—in which a Pifa, or pastoral serenade, sets the stage for the angels as they announce Christ’s birth to the shepherds—Handel alternates typical secco recitative (unaccompanied except for the chords that serve as punctuation) with soaring ariosos (a style in between recitative and aria), in which the orchestra mimics the fluttering of wings. The chorus, “Glory to God in the highest,” plays the part of the “multitude of the heavenly host praising God.” 

Handel does not wholly avoid traditional musical structure in Messiah. He uses standard aria forms several times to great effect, taking advantage of the repetition of melody and words to intensify the drama. In the Part II bass aria, “The Trumpet shall sound,” the phrase literally comes to life, contrasting brilliant trumpet statements with the low, resonant vocal line. (Handel’s unusual setting of the word “incorruptible” offers a glimpse of one facet of his text-setting; as a German speaker who came late to English, did he mispronounce the word, or was he playing with the consonant sounds to generate rhythmic interest?) With only his compositions as precedent, Handel had complete freedom in the choruses—and he confidently straddles the line between clarity of text and exuberant musical depictions of its meaning. Throughout, he employs both homophony (chordal singing) and imitative polyphony (staggered entrances of individual lines) to underscore the message and generate excitement. In the Part I chorus, “And the glory of the Lord,” for example, the phrase “And the glory of the lord” often occurs as a powerful unison statement, elegantly dissolving into imitative phrases without ever sacrificing diction. And in the concluding chorus, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,” Handel uses a variety of musical tools—shifts in tempo, texture, and mode, to name a few—to bring this monumental work to a truly triumphant conclusion.

—©Jennifer More, 2022