Messiah (HWV 56) is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible, and from the Coverdale Psalter, the version of the "Psalms" included with the "Book of Common Prayer". It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and received its London premiere nearly a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music. Handel's reputation in England, where he had lived since 1712, had been established through his compositions of Italian opera.
Introduction
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah (Handel) | Introduction
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who wrote the hallelujah chorus from handel messiah
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George Frideric Handel
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It is an English-language oratorio, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible, and from the Coverdale Psalter, the version of the "Psalms" included with the "Book of Common Prayer".
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when was it composed?
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Messiah (HWV 56) is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible, and from the Coverdale Psalter, the version of the "Psalms" included with the "Book of Common Prayer". It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and received its London premiere nearly a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music. Handel's reputation in England, where he had lived since 1712, had been established through his compositions of Italian opera.
Messiah (Handel) | Introduction
Messiah (HWV 56), the English-language oratorio composed by George Frideric Handel in 1741, is structured in three parts, listed here in tables for their musical setting and biblical sources.
Structure of Handel's Messiah | Introduction
He turned to English oratorio in the 1730s in response to changes in public taste; "Messiah" was his sixth work in this genre. Although its structure resembles that of opera, it is not in dramatic form; there are no impersonations of characters and no direct speech. Instead, Jennens's text is an extended reflection on Jesus as the Messiah called Christ. The text begins in Part I with prophecies by Isaiah and others, and moves to the annunciation to the shepherds, the only "scene" taken from the Gospels. In Part II, Handel concentrates on the Passion and ends with the "Hallelujah" chorus.
Messiah (Handel) | Introduction
The libretto by Charles Jennens is drawn from the Bible: mostly from the Old Testament of the King James Bible, but with several psalms taken from the Book of Common Prayer. Regarding the text, Jennens commented: "...the Subject excells every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah ...". "Messiah" differs from Handel's other oratorios in that it does not contain an encompassing narrative, instead offering contemplation on different aspects of the Christian Messiah:
Structure of Handel's Messiah | Oratorio
According to the musicologist Donald Burrows, much of the text is so allusive as to be largely incomprehensible to those ignorant of the biblical accounts. For the benefit of his audiences Jennens printed and issued a pamphlet explaining the reasons for his choices of scriptural selections.
Messiah (Handel) | Synopsis
"Messiah" (HWV 56), the English-language oratorio composed by George Frideric Handel in 1741, is structured in three parts. The wordbook (also called libretto or text) was supplied by Charles Jennens. This article covers Part I and describes the relation of the musical setting to the text. Part I begins with the prophecy of the Messiah and his virgin birth by several prophets, namely Isaiah. His birth is still rendered in words by Isaiah, followed by the annunciation to the shepherds as the only scene from a Gospel in the oratorio, and reflections on the Messiah's deeds. Part II covers the Passion, death, resurrection, ascension, and the later spreading of the Gospel.
Messiah Part I | Introduction
The libretto by Jennens is drawn from the Bible: mostly from the Old Testament of the King James Bible, but with several psalms taken from the Book of Common Prayer. Regarding the text, Jennens commented: "...the Subject excells every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah ...". "Messiah" differs from Handel's other oratorios in that it does not contain an encompassing narrative, instead offering contemplation on different aspects of the Christian Messiah:
Messiah Part I | Messiah, the oratorio
The music for "Messiah" was completed in 24 days of swift composition. Having received Jennens's text some time after 10 July 1741, Handel began work on it on 22 August. His records show that he had completed Part I in outline by 28 August, Part II by 6 September and Part III by 12 September, followed by two days of "filling up" to produce the finished work on 14 September. This rapid pace was seen by Jennens not as a sign of ecstatic energy but rather as "careless neglicence", and the relations between the two men would remain strained, since Jennens "urged Handel to make improvements" while the composer stubbornly refused.
Messiah (Handel) | Composition
"Messiah" (HWV 56), the English-language oratorio composed by George Frideric Handel in 1741, is structured in three parts. This listing covers Part II in a table and comments on individual movements, reflecting the relation of the musical setting to the text. Part I begins with the prophecy of the Messiah and his birth, shows the annunciation to the shepherds and reflects the Messiah's deeds on earth. Part II covers the Passion in nine movements including the oratorio's longest movement, an air for alto "He was despised", then mentions death, resurrection, ascension, and reflects the spreading of the Gospel and its rejection.
Messiah Part II | Introduction
In his libretto, Jennens's intention was not to dramatise the life and teachings of Jesus, but to acclaim the "Mystery of Godliness", using a compilation of extracts from the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible, and from the Psalms included in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The three-part structure of the work approximates to that of Handel's three-act operas, with the "parts" subdivided by Jennens into "scenes". Each scene is a collection of individual numbers or "movements" which take the form of recitatives, arias and choruses. There are two instrumental numbers, the opening "Sinfony" in the style of a French overture, and the pastoral "Pifa", often called the "pastoral symphony", at the mid-point of Part I.
Messiah (Handel) | Synopsis
Between 1742 and 1754 he continued to revise and recompose individual movements, sometimes to suit the requirements of particular singers. The first published score of "Messiah" was issued in 1767, eight years after Handel's death, though this was based on relatively early manuscripts and included none of Handel's later revisions.
Messiah (Handel) | Composition
"Messiah" (HWV 56), the English-language oratorio composed by George Frideric Handel in 1741, is structured in three parts. This listing covers Part III in a table and comments on individual movements, reflecting the relation of the musical setting to the text. Part I begins with the prophecy of the Messiah and his birth, shows the annunciation to the shepherds as a scene from the Gospel of Luke, and reflects the Messiah's deeds on Earth. Part II covers the Passion, death, resurrection, ascension, and the later spreading of the Gospel. Part III concentrates on Paul's teaching of the and Christ's glorification in heaven.
Messiah Part III | Introduction
The libretto by Charles Jennens is entirely drawn from the Bible, mostly from the King James Bible, whereas several psalms are taken from the Book of Common Prayer. The librettist commented: "... the Subject excells every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah ...". "Messiah" differs from Handel's other oratorios by telling no story, instead offering reflections on different aspects of the Christian Messiah. Christopher Hogwood comments:
Messiah Part III | Messiah, the oratorio
The libretto by Charles Jennens is entirely drawn from the Bible, mostly from the King James Bible, whereas several psalms are taken from the Book of Common Prayer. The librettist commented: "... the Subject excells every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah ...". "Messiah" differs from Handel's other oratorios by telling no story, instead offering reflections on different aspects of the Christian Messiah. Christopher Hogwood comments:
Messiah Part II | Messiah, the oratorio
Handel set his music to a libretto that Charles Jennens had compiled from the Bible (mostly the Old Testament). Jennens commented that: "the Subject excells every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah ...". "Messiah" differs from Handel's other oratorios in that it does not contain an encompassing narrative, instead offering contemplation on different aspects of the Christian Messiah. The libretto follows the liturgical year: Part I corresponding to Advent, Christmas, and the life of Jesus; Part II to Lent, Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost; and Part III to the end of the church year—dealing with the end of time. The birth and death of Jesus are told in the words of the prophet Isaiah, the most prominent source of the libretto.
Der Messias | Text
He was certainly devoted to Handel's music, having helped to finance the publication of every Handel score since "Rodelinda" in 1725. By 1741, after their collaboration on "Saul", a warm friendship had developed between the two, and Handel was a frequent visitor to the Jennens family estate at Gopsall. Jennens's letter to Holdsworth of 10 July 1741, in which he first mentions "Messiah", suggests that the text was a recent work, probably assembled earlier that summer. As a devout Anglican and believer in scriptural authority, Jennens intended to challenge advocates of Deism, who rejected the doctrine of divine intervention in human affairs.
Messiah (Handel) | Libretto
It was composed from 27 December 1749 to 8 January 1750. Handel later used the music in "The Choice of Hercules", HWV 69, and revivals of "Alexander Balus", HWV 65, and "Hercules", HWV 60.
Alceste (Handel) | Introduction
The performance took place on 6 March 1789 in the rooms of Count Johann Esterházy, with four soloists and a choir of 12. Mozart's arrangement, with minor amendments from Hiller, was published in 1803, after his death. The musical scholar Moritz Hauptmann described the Mozart additions as "stucco ornaments on a marble temple". Mozart himself was reportedly circumspect about his changes, insisting that any alterations to Handel's score should not be interpreted as an effort to improve the music. Elements of this version later became familiar to British audiences, incorporated into editions of the score by editors including Ebenezer Prout.
Messiah (Handel) | 18th century
Jennens wrote to Holdsworth on 30 August 1745: "[Handel] has made a fine Entertainment of it, though not near so good as he might & ought to have done. I have with great difficulty made him correct some of the grosser faults in the composition ..." Handel directed two performances at Covent Garden in 1745, on 9 and 11 April, and then set the work aside for four years.
Messiah (Handel) | London, 1743–59
Thus, ' from 1722 became the basis of "O Death, where is thy sting?"; "His yoke is easy" and "And he shall purify" were drawn from ' (July 1741), "Unto us a child is born" and "All we like sheep" from ' (July 1741). Handel's instrumentation in the score is often imprecise, again in line with contemporary convention, where the use of certain instruments and combinations was assumed and did not need to be written down by the composer; later copyists would fill in the details. Before the first performance Handel made numerous revisions to his manuscript score, in part to match the forces available for the 1742 Dublin premiere; it is probable that his work was not performed as originally conceived in his lifetime.
Messiah (Handel) | Composition
A near-complete version was issued on 78 rpm discs in 1928; since then the work has been recorded many times.
Messiah (Handel) | Introduction
"Joshua" was the fourth oratorio Handel had written within the span of twenty months. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 in England, Handel produced a series of English oratorios based on military themes: "Occasional Oratorio, Judas Maccabaeus, Alexander Balus, Joshua", and "Solomon". The military conquests the Israelites achieve in the oratorio were seen as parallels to the victory of the Hanoverian regime in crushing the Jacobite rebellion. "Joshua" was one of his shortest oratorios, containing no genuine overture, only a brief orchestral movement simply titled, "Introduction." "Joshua" also included at least five pieces borrowed from other Handel compositions. Part one was completed on 30 July 1747, Part two on 8 August and Part three on 19 August.
Joshua (Handel) | Introduction
Such was the success of his oratorios in English that eventually Handel abandoned Italian opera, his last being Deidamia in 1741, and produced a string of masterpieces of oratorio in English. Handel began the composition of "Samson" immediately after completing "Messiah" on 14 September 1741. It uses a libretto by Newburgh Hamilton, who based it on Milton's "Samson Agonistes", which in turn was based on the figure Samson in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges. Handel completed the first act on 20 September 1741, the second act on 11 October that year, and the whole work on 29 October.
Samson (Handel) | Background and Composition
Its success encouraged Handel to write two more oratorios ("Deborah" and "Athalia"). All three oratorios were performed to large and appreciative audiences at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford in mid-1733. Undergraduates reportedly sold their furniture to raise the money for the five-shilling tickets.
Messiah (Handel) | Background
There is no convincing evidence that the king was present, or that he attended any subsequent performance of "Messiah"; the first reference to the practice of standing appears in a letter dated 1756, three years prior to Handel's death. London's initially cool reception of "Messiah" led Handel to reduce the season's planned six performances to three, and not to present the work at all in 1744—to the considerable annoyance of Jennens, whose relations with the composer temporarily soured. At Jennens's request, Handel made several changes in the music for the 1745 revival: "Their sound is gone out" became a choral piece, the soprano song "Rejoice greatly" was recomposed in shortened form, and the transpositions for Cibber's voice were restored to their original soprano range.
Messiah (Handel) | London, 1743–59
The autograph score's 259 pages show some signs of haste such as blots, scratchings-out, unfilled bars and other uncorrected errors, but according to the music scholar Richard Luckett the number of errors is remarkably small in a document of this length. The original manuscript for "Messiah" is now held in the British Library's music collection. It is scored for 2 trumpets, timpani, 2 oboes, 2 violins, viola, and basso continuo. At the end of his manuscript Handel wrote the letters "SDG"—', "To God alone the glory". This inscription, taken with the speed of composition, has encouraged belief in the apocryphal story that Handel wrote the music in a fervour of divine inspiration in which, as he wrote the "Hallelujah" chorus, "he saw all heaven before him".
Messiah (Handel) | Composition
Shaw describes the text as "a meditation of our Lord as Messiah in Christian thought and belief", and despite his reservations on Jennens's character, concedes that the finished wordbook "amounts to little short of a work of genius". There is no evidence that Handel played any active role in the selection or preparation of the text, such as he did in the case of "Saul"; it seems, rather, that he saw no need to make any significant amendment to Jennens's work.
Messiah (Handel) | Libretto
In an attempt to deflect such sensibilities, in London Handel had avoided the name "Messiah" and presented the work as the "New Sacred Oratorio". As was his custom, Handel rearranged the music to suit his singers. He wrote a new setting of "And lo, the angel of the Lord" for Clive, never used subsequently. He added a tenor song for Beard: "Their sound is gone out", which had appeared in Jennens's original libretto but had not been in the Dublin performances. The custom of standing for the "Hallelujah" chorus originates from a belief that, at the London premiere, King George II did so, which would have obliged all to stand.
Messiah (Handel) | London, 1743–59
Judas Maccabaeus (HWV 63) is an oratorio in three acts composed in 1746 by George Frideric Handel based on a libretto written by Thomas Morell. The oratorio was devised as a compliment to the victorious Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland upon his return from the Battle of Culloden (16 April 1746). Other catalogues of Handel's music have referred to the work as HG xxii; and HHA 1/24.
Judas Maccabaeus (Handel) | Introduction
Mozart's version of Handel's "Messiah" was first published in 1803, edited by Johann Adam Hiller. It was instrumental in making "Messiah" Handel's most widely known oratorio. In 1884, Robert Franz published a mixed German-and-English version of "Messiah", based on Handel's original, Mozart's arrangement, and his own amendments. He tried to purge the score of Hiller's "unallowable" additions, in which he was helped by having access to Hiller's manuscript. However, few scholars of either Mozart or Handel's music have been supporters of Franz's version.
Der Messias | Reception
Mozart's arrangement, first published in 1803, was instrumental in making "Messiah" Handel's most widely known oratorio. However, the adaptation has had few supporters amongst Mozart or Handel scholars.
Der Messias | Introduction
Although prospects for Italian opera were declining, Handel remained committed to the genre, but as alternatives to his staged works he began to introduce English-language oratorios. In Rome in 1707–08 he had written two Italian oratorios at a time when opera performances in the city were temporarily forbidden under papal decree. His first venture into English oratorio had been "Esther", which was written and performed for a private patron in about 1718. In 1732 Handel brought a revised and expanded version of "Esther" to the King's Theatre, Haymarket, where members of the royal family attended a glittering premiere on 6 May.
Messiah (Handel) | Background
Burrows points out that many of Handel's operas, of comparable length and structure to "Messiah", were composed within similar timescales between theatrical seasons. The effort of writing so much music in so short a time was not unusual for Handel and his contemporaries; Handel commenced his next oratorio, "Samson", within a week of finishing "Messiah", and completed his draft of this new work in a month. In accordance with his frequent practice when writing new works, Handel adapted existing compositions for use in "Messiah", in this case drawing on two recently completed Italian duets and one written twenty years previously.
Messiah (Handel) | Composition
The year 1739 saw the first performance of his great oratorio Saul, his setting of John Dryden's Ode for St Cecilia's Day and the revival of his pastoral English opera or serenata Acis and Galatea. In the previous year he had produced the choral work Israel in Egypt and in 1740 he composed L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, a cantata-like setting of John Milton's poetry.
Concerti grossi, Op. 6 (Handel) | History and origins
When Handel composed "Messiah" in London, he was already a successful and experienced composer of Italian operas. He had started in 1713 to also compose sacred music on English texts, such as the "Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate". He set many oratorios on English libretti. In "Messiah" he used practically the same musical means as for those works, namely a structure based on chorus and solo singing. Only a few movements are a duet or a combination of solo and chorus. The solos are typically a combination of recitative and aria. The arias are called Air or Song, some of them have da capo form, but rarely in a strict sense, repeating a first section after a sometimes contrasting middle section.
Messiah Part III | Music
In Part III he covers the resurrection of the dead and Christ's glorification in heaven. Handel wrote "Messiah" for modest vocal and instrumental forces, with optional settings for many of the individual numbers. In the years after his death, the work was adapted for performance on a much larger scale, with giant orchestras and choirs. In other efforts to update it, its orchestration was revised and amplified by (among others) Mozart ("Der Messias"). In the late 20th and early 21st centuries the trend has been towards reproducing a greater fidelity to Handel's original intentions, although "big "Messiah"" productions continue to be mounted.
Messiah (Handel) | Introduction
When Handel composed "Messiah" in London, he was already a successful and experienced composer of Italian operas. He had started in 1713 to also compose sacred music on English texts, such as the "Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate". He set many oratorios on English libretti. In "Messiah" he used practically the same musical means as for those works, namely a structure based on chorus and solo singing. Only a few movements are a duet or a combination of solo and chorus. The solos are typically a combination of recitative and aria. The arias are called Air or Song, some of them have da capo form, but rarely in a strict sense, repeating a first section after a sometimes contrasting middle section.
Messiah Part II | Music
an appeal from several quarters that Handel should be played and heard as in the days between 1700 and 1750". At the end of the century, Sir Frederick Bridge and T. W. Bourne pioneered revivals of "Messiah" in Handel's orchestration, and Bourne's work was the basis for further scholarly versions in the early 20th century.
Messiah (Handel) | 19th century
Since by man came death The text for the chorus "Since by man came death" continues Paul's thoughts, juxtaposing death and resurrection twice. Consequently, Handel twice uses a Grave a cappella setting in A minor with chromatic lines, opposed to an Allegro with orchestra in C major in most simple harmony, switching back and forth between these extremes.
Messiah Part III | 46
The numbering of the movements shown here is in accordance with the Novello vocal score (1959), edited by Watkins Shaw, which adapts the numbering earlier devised by Ebenezer Prout. Other editions count the movements slightly differently; the Bärenreiter edition of 1965, for example, does not number all the recitatives and runs from 1 to 47. The division into parts and scenes is based upon the 1743 word-book prepared for the first London performance. The scene headings are given as Burrows summarized the scene headings by Jennens. Scene 1: Isaiah's prophecy of salvation Scene 2: The coming judgment
Messiah (Handel) | Organization and numbering of movements
During the second half of the eighteenth century the estate was owned by Charles Jennens (a librettist and friend of George Frideric Handel). It is reputed that in 1741 Handel composed part of "Messiah", his famous oratorio, inside a garden temple at Gopsall. Some texts however challenge this theory and posit there is no evidence to confirm Handel stayed on the estate in 1741, although he was a frequent visitor. The temple was built after "Messiah" had already been completed. The organ that Handel specified for Charles Jennens in 1749 is now to be found in St James' Church, Great Packington.
Gopsall | Handel’s "Messiah"
By 1738, Handel was experiencing some difficulty in maintaining support for his Italian opera seasons in London and he collaborated for the first time with Charles Jennens, a wealthy landowner and lover of the arts, who also provided the texts for "Messiah" and other oratorios of Handel. Jennens wrote "Saul", an original English text based on Biblical characters, especially designed to provide opportunities for the sort of music Handel composed. Opera seria, the form of Italian opera that Handel composed for London, focused overwhelmingly on solo arias and recitatives for the star singers and contained very little else; they did not feature separate choruses.
Saul (Handel) | Composition and instrumentation
Handel's music for "Messiah" is distinguished from most of his other oratorios by an orchestral restraint—a quality which the musicologist Percy M. Young observes was not adopted by Mozart and other later arrangers of the music. The work begins quietly, with instrumental and solo movements preceding the first appearance of the chorus, whose entry in the low alto register is muted. A particular aspect of Handel's restraint is his limited use of trumpets throughout the work. After their introduction in the Part I chorus "Glory to God", apart from the solo in "The trumpet shall sound" they are heard only in "Hallelujah" and the final chorus "Worthy is the Lamb".
Messiah (Handel) | Overview
By the time Handel composed "Messiah" in London he was already a successful and experienced composer of Italian operas, and had created sacred works based on English texts, such as the 1713 "Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate", and numerous oratorios on English libretti. For "Messiah", Handel used the same musical technique as for those works, namely a structure based on chorus and solo singing. The orchestra scoring is simple: oboes, strings and basso continuo of harpsichord, violoncello, violone and bassoon. Two trumpets and timpani highlight selected movements, in Part I the song of the angels, "Glory to God in the highest", and with timpani the closing movements of both Part II, "Hallelujah", and of Part III, "Worthy is the Lamb".
Structure of Handel's Messiah | Music
The second Part begins in G minor, a key which, in Hogwood's phrase, brings a mood of "tragic presentiment" to the long sequence of Passion numbers which follows. The declamatory opening chorus "Behold the Lamb of God", in fugal form, is followed by the alto solo "He was despised" in E flat major, the longest single item in the oratorio, in which some phrases are sung unaccompanied to emphasise Christ's abandonment. Luckett records Burney's description of this number as "the highest idea of excellence in pathetic expression of any English song". The subsequent series of mainly short choral movements cover Christ's Passion, Crucifixion, Death and Resurrection, at first in F minor, with a brief F major respite in "All we like sheep".
Messiah (Handel) | Part II
Handel revived the work in 1759. The oratorio contains a short and lively instrumental passage for two oboes and strings in Act Three, known as "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba", which has become famous outside the context of the complete work, and was featured at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony as James Bond (Daniel Craig) goes to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
Solomon (Handel) | Introduction
The statement returns a final time after a rest, marked Adagio, giving the soloist the opportunity to express it in a cadenza. A prestissimo postlude concludes the dramatic scene. Handel rewrote this dramatic scene in London in 1750 for the castrato Gaetano Guadagni, after he had initially set the text as a recitative for bass.
Messiah Part I | 6
The opening "Sinfony" is composed in E minor for strings, and is Handel's first use in oratorio of the French overture form. Jennens commented that the "Sinfony" contains "passages far unworthy of Handel, but much more unworthy of the Messiah"; Handel's early biographer Charles Burney merely found it "dry and uninteresting". A change of key to E major leads to the first prophecy, delivered by the tenor whose vocal line in the opening recitative "Comfort ye" is entirely independent of the strings accompaniment. The music proceeds through various key changes as the prophecies unfold, culminating in the G major chorus "For unto us a child is born", in which the choral exclamations (which include an ascending fourth in "the Mighty God") are imposed on material drawn from Handel's Italian cantata "Nò, di voi non-vo'fidarmi".
Messiah (Handel) | Part I
In continental Europe, performances of "Messiah" were departing from Handel's practices in a different way: his score was being drastically reorchestrated to suit contemporary tastes. In 1786, Johann Adam Hiller presented "Messiah" with updated scoring in Berlin Cathedral. In 1788 Hiller presented a performance of his revision with a choir of 259 and an orchestra of 87 strings, 10 bassoons, 11 oboes, 8 flutes, 8 horns, 4 clarinets, 4 trombones, 7 trumpets, timpani, harpsichord and organ. In 1789, Mozart was commissioned by Baron Gottfried van Swieten and the to re-orchestrate several works by Handel, including "Messiah" ("Der Messias"). Writing for a small-scale performance, he eliminated the organ continuo, added parts for flutes, clarinets, trombones and horns, recomposed some passages and rearranged others.
Messiah (Handel) | 18th century
Allan Kozinn, "The New York Times" music critic, finds "a model marriage of music and text ... From the gentle falling melody assigned to the opening words ("Comfort ye") to the sheer ebullience of the "Hallelujah" chorus and the ornate celebratory counterpoint that supports the closing "Amen", hardly a line of text goes by that Handel does not amplify".
Messiah (Handel) | Overview
Belshazzar (HWV 61) is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. The libretto was by Charles Jennens, and Handel abridged it considerably. Jennens' libretto was based on the Biblical account of the fall of Babylon at the hands of Cyrus the Great and the subsequent freeing of the Jewish nation, as found in the Book of Daniel. Handel composed "Belshazzar" in the late Summer of 1744 concurrently with "Hercules", during a time that Winton Dean calls "the peak of Handel's creative life". The work premiered the following Lenten season on 27 March 1745 at the King's Theatre, London. The work fell into neglect after Handel's death, with revivals of the work occurring in the United Kingdom in 1847, 1848 and 1873.
Belshazzar (Handel) | Introduction
For the 1754 Foundling Hospital performance Handel added two horns, which join in when the chorus unites towards the end of the number. After the celebratory tone of Christ's reception into heaven, marked by the choir's D major acclamation "Let all the angels of God worship him", the "Whitsun" section proceeds through a series of contrasting moods—serene and pastoral in "How beautiful are the feet", theatrically operatic in "Why do the nations so furiously rage"—towards the Part II culmination of "Hallelujah". This, as Young points out, is not the climactic chorus of the work, although one cannot escape its "contagious enthusiasm".
Messiah (Handel) | Part II
Shortly after that he travelled to Dublin to put on the premiere of "Messiah", returning to London at the end of August 1742 and thoroughly revising "Samson".
Samson (Handel) | Background and Composition
By the time Handel composed "Messiah" in London he was already a successful and experienced composer of Italian operas, and had created sacred works based on English texts, such as the 1713 "Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate", and numerous oratorios on English libretti. For "Messiah", Handel used the same musical technique as for those works, namely a structure based on chorus and solo singing. Only two movements in "Messiah" are purely instrumental: the overture (written as "Sinfony" in Handel's autograph) and the Pifa (a pastorale introducing the shepherds in Bethlehem); and only a few movements are a duet or a combination of solo and chorus.
Messiah Part I | Music
Although the huge-scale oratorio tradition was perpetuated by such large ensembles as the Royal Choral Society, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Huddersfield Choral Society in the 20th century, there were increasing calls for performances more faithful to Handel's conception. At the turn of the century, "The Musical Times" wrote of the "additional accompaniments" of Mozart and others, "Is it not time that some of these 'hangers on' of Handel's score were sent about their business?" In 1902, the musicologist Ebenezer Prout produced a new edition of the score, working from Handel's original manuscripts rather than from corrupt printed versions with errors accumulated from one edition to another.
Messiah (Handel) | 20th century and beyond
The Georgian era saw a German-born monarch and German-born composer define the English oratorio. George Frideric Handel, most famous today for his "Messiah" (1741), also wrote other oratorios based on themes from Greek and Roman mythology and Biblical topics. He is also credited with writing the first English language oratorio, "Esther". Handel's imitators included the Italian Lidarti who was employed by the Amsterdam Jewish community to compose a Hebrew version of "Esther".
Oratorio | Georgian Britain
"Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno", an allegory, Handel's first oratorio was composed in Italy in 1707, followed by "La resurrezione" in 1708 which uses material from the Bible. The circumstances of "Esther" and its first performance, possibly in 1718, are obscure. Another 12 years had passed when an act of piracy caused him to take up "Esther" once again. Three earlier performances aroused such interest that they naturally prompted the idea of introducing it to a larger public. Next came "Deborah", strongly coloured by the coronation anthems and "Athaliah", his first English Oratorio. In these three oratorios Handel laid the foundation for the traditional use of the chorus which marks his later oratorios.
George Frideric Handel | Oratorio
I would have wished it had been Italian, that they might have sang with more ease to themselves, since ... it might as well have been Hebrew.
Esther (Handel) | Oratorio (1732)
Mozart first heard Handel's "Messiah" in London in 1764 or 1765, and then in Mannheim in 1777. The first performance, in English, in Germany was in 1772 in Hamburg. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was the first to perform the oratorio in German: he presented it in 1775 in Hamburg, with a libretto translated by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Christoph Daniel Ebeling, followed by repeat performances in that city in 1777 and 1778. In 1885, Johann Adam Hiller's arrangement of "Messiah" was performed by 302 vocalists and instrumentalists in Berlin. The score of Handel's "Messiah" was first published in London in 1767.
Der Messias | History
Handel originally wrote the entire aria for soprano solo in B flat.
Messiah Part I | 20
With the English oratorios Handel had the opportunity to mix operatic arias in English for the soloists with large choruses of the type that he used in the Coronation anthems. Jennens provided a text with well-rounded characters and dramatic effects. The collaboration with Jennens was not without tension; Jennens referred in a letter to the "maggots" in Handel's head and complained that Handel wanted to end the work with a chorus of "Hallelujahs" that the librettist did not feel was appropriate as at the end of the piece Israel has been defeated in battle and the King and Crown Prince both killed, whereas the Hallelujahs would be suited to the celebrations at the opening of the work when David has killed Goliath.
Saul (Handel) | Composition and instrumentation
The signal of a fourth has been observed by musicologist Rudolf Steglich as a unifying motif of the oratorio. Handel breaks the beginning of the text up to a stammering "He was despised, – despised and rejected, – rejected of men, ... – despi-sed – rejected", the words interspersed with rests as long as the words, as if exhausted. Soft sighing motifs of the violins, an echo of the singing, drop into these rests. Hogwood interprets the unaccompanied passages as emphasizing "Christ's abandonment". The middle section is also full of dramatic rests, but now the voice is set on a ceaseless agitated pattern of fast dotted notes in the instruments, illustrating the hits of the smiters in text from the third song (), where the words appear in the first person: "He gave his back – to the smiters – ...
Messiah Part II | 23
The duet runs straight into the chorus "But thanks be to God". The reflective soprano solo "If God be for us" (originally written for alto) quotes Luther's chorale "". It ushers in the D major choral finale: "Worthy is the Lamb", leading to the apocalyptic "Amen" in which, says Hogwood, "the entry of the trumpets marks the final storming of heaven". Handel's first biographer, John Mainwaring, wrote in 1760 that this conclusion revealed the composer "rising still higher" than in "that vast effort of genius, the Hallelujah chorus". Young writes that the "Amen" should, in the manner of Palestrina, "be delivered as though through the aisles and ambulatories of some great church".
Messiah (Handel) | Part III
The most famous collaboration is Jennens' libretto for "Messiah", drawn entirely from the Bible, about 60 per cent from the Old Testament (with occasional small alterations). Musicologist Watkins Shaw describes it as "a meditation of our Lord as Messiah in Christian thought and belief", and which "amounts to little short of a work of genius". Some attribute "Messiah"'s emphasis on the Old Testament – and choice of the Old Testament title "Messiah" – to Jennens' theological beliefs. Jennens was less than wholly approving of the musical setting, writing to Edward Holdsworth: "I shall show you a collection I gave Handel, called "Messiah", which I value highly.
Charles Jennens | Collaboration with Handel
The opening soprano solo in E major, "I know that my Redeemer liveth" is one of the few numbers in the oratorio that has remained unrevised from its original form. Its simple unison violin accompaniment and its consoling rhythms apparently brought tears to Burney's eyes. It is followed by a quiet chorus that leads to the bass's declamation in D major: "Behold, I tell you a mystery", then the long aria "The trumpet shall sound", marked ' ("dignified but not fast"). Handel originally wrote this in da capo form, but shortened it to dal segno, probably before the first performance.
Messiah (Handel) | Part III
The final recitative of this section is in D major and heralds the affirmative chorus "Glory to God". The remainder of Part I is largely carried by the soprano in B flat, in what Burrows terms a rare instance of tonal stability. The aria "He shall feed his flock" underwent several transformations by Handel, appearing at different times as a recitative, an alto aria and a duet for alto and soprano before the original soprano version was restored in 1754. The appropriateness of the Italian source material for the setting of the solemn concluding chorus "His yoke is easy" has been questioned by the music scholar Sedley Taylor, who calls it "a piece of word-painting ...
Messiah (Handel) | Part I
The warm reception accorded to "Messiah" in Dublin was not repeated in London. Indeed, even the announcement of the performance as a "new Sacred Oratorio" drew an anonymous commentator to ask if "the "Playhouse" is a fit "Temple" to perform it". Handel introduced the work at the Covent Garden theatre on 23 March 1743. Avoglio and Cibber were again the chief soloists; they were joined by the tenor John Beard, a veteran of Handel's operas, the bass Thomas Rheinhold and two other sopranos, Kitty Clive and Miss Edwards. The first performance was overshadowed by views expressed in the press that the work's subject matter was too exalted to be performed in a theatre, particularly by secular singer-actresses such as Cibber and Clive.
Messiah (Handel) | London, 1743–59
grievously out of place", though he concedes that the four-part choral conclusion is a stroke of genius that combines beauty with dignity.
Messiah (Handel) | Part I
The extended, characteristic trumpet tune that precedes and accompanies the voice is the only significant instrumental solo in the entire oratorio. Handel's awkward, repeated stressing of the fourth syllable of "incorruptible" may have been the source of the 18th-century poet William Shenstone's comment that he "could observe some parts in "Messiah" wherein Handel's judgements failed him; where the music was not equal, or was even "opposite", to what the words required". After a brief solo recitative, the alto is joined by the tenor for the only duet in Handel's final version of the music, "O death, where is thy sting?" The melody is adapted from Handel's 1722 cantata ', and is in Luckett's view the most successful of the Italian borrowings.
Messiah (Handel) | Part III
Charles Jennens was born around 1700, into a prosperous landowning family whose lands and properties in Warwickshire and Leicestershire he eventually inherited. His religious and political views—he opposed the Act of Settlement of 1701 which secured the accession to the British throne for the House of Hanover—prevented him from receiving his degree from Balliol College, Oxford, or from pursuing any form of public career. His family's wealth enabled him to live a life of leisure while devoting himself to his literary and musical interests. Although the musicologist Watkins Shaw dismisses Jennens as "a conceited figure of no special ability", Donald Burrows has written: "of Jennens's musical literacy there can be no doubt".
Messiah (Handel) | Libretto
He has made a fine entertainment of it, though not near so good as he might and ought to have done. I have with great difficulty made him correct some of the grossest faults in the composition; but he retained his overture obstinately, in which there are some passages far unworthy of Handel, but much more unworthy of the "Messiah.""
Charles Jennens | Collaboration with Handel
The composer George Frideric Handel, born in Halle, Germany in 1685, took up permanent residence in London in 1712, and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. By 1741 his pre-eminence in British music was evident from the honours he had accumulated, including a pension from the court of King George II, the office of Composer of Musick for the Chapel Royal, and—most unusually for a living person—a statue erected in his honour in Vauxhall Gardens. Within a large and varied musical output, Handel was a vigorous champion of Italian opera, which he had introduced to London in 1711 with "Rinaldo".
Messiah (Handel) | Background
The center of Part III is a sequence of six movements based on a passage from Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians on the resurrection of the dead, a passage that Brahms also chose for "Ein deutsches Requiem".
Structure of Handel's Messiah | Music
Charles Jennens (1700 – 20 November 1773) was an English landowner and patron of the arts. As a friend of Handel, he helped author the libretti of several of his oratorios, most notably "Messiah".
Charles Jennens | Introduction
Hercules (HWV 60) is a "Musical Drama" in three acts by George Frideric Handel, composed in July and August 1744. The English language libretto was by the Reverend Thomas Broughton, based on Sophocles's "Women of Trachis" and the ninth book of Ovid's "Metamorphoses".
Hercules (Handel) | Introduction
Joshua (HWV 64) is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. It was composed in a month, between 19 July 1747 and 19 August 1747, six months before the beginning of the oratorio season, and is Handel's fourth oratorio based on a libretto by Thomas Morell. The oratorio premiered on 9 March 1748 at the Covent Garden Theatre, London. " Joshua" is based on the Biblical story of Joshua as the leader of the ancient Israelites. The story follows the Israelites from their passage over the Jordan River into Caanan and through the Battle of Jericho. The work also includes a love story elaborated from a few hints in the Biblical narrative between Caleb's daughter Achsah and Othniel, a young soldier.
Joshua (Handel) | Introduction
It contains 44 movements split over three parts. Part One, generally speaking, concerns the miseries of war and the vengeance of a wrathful God, Part Two the blessings of peace, and Part Three a thanksgiving for victory. This was felt at the time by some to be premature as the rebels had not yet been defeated, Charles Jennens, Handel's friend and collaborator who wrote the text for "Saul" and others of Handel's oratorios called the piece "a triumph for a victory not yet gained." The festive four part overture, with trumpets and drums, is sometimes performed outside the context of the entire piece.
Occasional Oratorio | Introduction
It builds from a deceptively light orchestral opening, through a short, unison cantus firmus passage on the words "For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth", to the reappearance of the long-silent trumpets at "And He shall reign for ever and ever". Commentators have noted that the musical line for this third subject is based on "Wachet auf", Philipp Nicolai's popular Lutheran chorale.
Messiah (Handel) | Part II
Joseph (HWV 59) is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel completed in the summer of 1743. "Joseph" is composed to an English language libretto by the Reverend James Miller, based on Apostolo Zeno's Italian language libretto for "Giuseppe", an oratorio by Antonio Caldara. It received its premiere performance that following Lenten season on 2 March 1744 at the Covent Garden Theatre.
Joseph and his Brethren | Introduction
Israel in Egypt (HWV 54) is a biblical oratorio by the composer George Frideric Handel. Most scholars believe the libretto was prepared by Charles Jennens, who also compiled the biblical texts for Handel's "Messiah". It is composed entirely of selected passages from the Old Testament, mainly from Exodus and the Psalms. "Israel in Egypt" premiered at London's King's Theatre in the Haymarket on April 4, 1739 with Élisabeth Duparc "La Francesina", William Savage, John Beard (tenor), Turner Robinson, Gustavus Waltz, and Thomas Reinhold. Handel started it soon after the opera season at King's Theatre was cancelled for lack of subscribers.
Israel in Egypt | Introduction
In 1736 Handel produced "Alexander's Feast". John Beard appeared for the first time as one of Handel's principal singers and became Handel's permanent tenor soloist for the rest of Handel's life. The piece was a great success and it encouraged Handel to make the transition from writing Italian operas to English choral works. In "Saul", Handel was collaborating with Charles Jennens and experimenting with three trombones, a carillon and extra-large military kettledrums (from the Tower of London), to be sure "...it will be most excessive noisy". "Saul" and "Israel in Egypt" both from 1739 head the list of great, mature oratorios, in which the da capo aria became the exception and not the rule.
George Frideric Handel | Oratorio
In May 1749, the composer George Frederic Handel held a benefit concert in the Hospital chapel to raise funds for the charity, performing his specially composed choral piece, the "Foundling Hospital Anthem". The work included the "Hallelujah" chorus from recently composed oratorio, "Messiah", which had premiered in Dublin in 1742. On 1 May 1750 Handel directed a performance of "Messiah" to mark the presentation of the organ to the chapel. That first performance was a great success and Handel was elected a Governor of the Hospital on the following day. Handel subsequently put on an annual performance of "Messiah" there, which helped to popularise the piece among British audiences.
Foundling Hospital | Music
Among recordings of older-style performances are Beecham's 1959 recording with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with orchestration commissioned from Sir Eugene Goossens and completed by the English composer Leonard Salzedo, Karl Richter's 1973 version for DG, and David Willcocks's 1995 performance based on Prout's 1902 edition of the score, with a 325-voice choir and 90-piece orchestra.
Messiah (Handel) | Recordings
If God be for us, who can be against us The scene closes with the assurance "If God be for us, who can be against us". As a contrast to the following choral conclusion of the oratorio, it is sung by the soprano. Towards the end, Handel quotes the characteristic intervals beginning Martin Luther's chorale "Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir" several times, leading into the final chorus.
Messiah Part III | 52
After two more instrumental measures, a four-part-setting develops to imitation and counterpoint of more and more independent voices, ending on a rest of a full measure. Finally, Amen is repeated two more times, Adagio. A contemporary critic, conditioned by John Brown who objected to operatic features in oratorios such as recitatives, long ritornellos, and ornamented vocal lines, commented on Handel's display of musical inventiveness and "contrapuntal skill": "The fugue too, on Amen, is entirely absurd, and without reason: at most, Amen is only a devout fiat, and ought never, therefore, to have been frittered, as it is, by endless divisions on A— and afterwards men." But Handel's first biographer, John Mainwaring, wrote in 1760 that this conclusion revealed the composer "rising still higher" than in "that vast effort of genius, the Hallelujah chorus".
Messiah Part III | 53
Handel revised the work several times for specific performances. The alternative movements are part of the Bärenreiter edition, the Novello numbers are given in parentheses.
Structure of Handel's Messiah | Alternative movements
The masque Comus, or There in the Blissful Shades (HWV * 44) is a short version of John Milton's Comus, based on a libretto earlier made by John Dalton for composer Thomas Arne's own Comus. The sixty-year-old Handel composed the setting in 1745 for the pleasure of other guests during his summer recuperation at the country seat of the Earl of Gainsborough. Some of the music was later recycled by Handel, for example as the tenor aria "Then will I Jehovah's praise" from the Occasional Oratorio.
Comus (Handel) | Introduction
Between 1759 and 1768 he directed the annual performances of "Messiah" at the Foundling Hospital, where he was organist. "Paradise Lost", first performed on 29 February 1760, was his greatest success with words by Stillingfleet after John Milton; four later ones, all performed at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, were largely reworkings of Handel's music: "Rebecca" on 4 March 1761 on a text by Stillingfleet, "Nabal" (16 March 1764), "Tobit" (1764) and "Gideon" (10 February 1769), all three on words by Thomas Morell. Information on three other oratorios is scarce: "Judith" on words by Robert Price, "Jehosaphat", and "Redemption" on words by William Coxe.
John Christopher Smith | Works
The Prout version sung with many voices remained popular with British choral societies, but at the same time increasingly frequent performances were given by small professional ensembles in suitably sized venues, using authentic scoring. Recordings on LP and CD were preponderantly of the latter type, and the large scale "Messiah" came to seem old-fashioned. The cause of authentic performance was advanced in 1965 by the publication of a new edition of the score, edited by Watkins Shaw. In the "Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", David Scott writes, "the edition at first aroused suspicion on account of its attempts in several directions to break the crust of convention surrounding the work in the British Isles." By the time of Shaw's death in 1996, "The Times" described his edition as "now in universal use".
Messiah (Handel) | 20th century and beyond
In the 19th century, approaches to Handel in German and English-speaking countries diverged further. In Leipzig in 1856, the musicologist Friedrich Chrysander and the literary historian Georg Gottfried Gervinus founded the Deutsche Händel-Gesellschaft with the aim of publishing authentic editions of all Handel's works. At the same time, performances in Britain and the United States moved away from Handel's performance practice with increasingly grandiose renditions. "Messiah" was presented in New York in 1853 with a chorus of 300 and in Boston in 1865 with more than 600. In the 1860s and 1870s ever larger forces were assembled. Bernard Shaw, in his role as a music critic, commented, "The stale wonderment which the great chorus never fails to elicit has already been exhausted"; he later wrote, "Why, instead of wasting huge sums on the multitudinous dullness of a Handel Festival does not somebody set up a thoroughly rehearsed and exhaustively studied performance of the Messiah in St James's Hall with a chorus of twenty capable artists? Most of us would be glad to hear the work seriously performed once before we die." The employment of huge forces necessitated considerable augmentation of the orchestral parts.
Messiah (Handel) | 19th century
Esther (HWV 50) is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. It is generally acknowledged to be the first English oratorio. Handel set a libretto after the Old Testament drama by Jean Racine. The work was originally composed in 1718, but was heavily revised into a full oratorio in 1732.
Esther (Handel) | Introduction
The first performance took place on 1 April 1747 at Covent Garden, and "Judas Maccabaeus" became one of Handel's most popular oratorios. The "General Advertiser" (issued on the day prior to the concert) announced the event as: The performers in this original 1747 production included: The famous chorus "See, the Conqu'ring Hero Comes!" was composed during the summer of 1747 for Handel's next oratorio, "Joshua". In the wake of its popularity, probably in 1751, Handel added it to "Judas Maccabaeus", and so it forms a legitimate part of "both" oratorios.
Judas Maccabaeus (Handel) | First performance
11 – 13) / Completed: 24 January 1984 Text: late 15th Century, from Trinity College, Cambridge MS 0.3.58 (adapted) / Completed: 1982 Completed: 1963 Text: The Song of Songs Ch. 8 vs. 6 and 7 / Completed: 14 January 1980 Text: Shakespeare / Completed: 18 July 1983 Words: Christina Rossetti / Composed: 1985 Text: National Library of Scotland Ms. Advocates 193.1; f.59a / Completed on 26 December 1983 Text: attrib. Rabanus Maurus (776–856) / Completed: 7 December 1974
John Kelsall | Chamber concert
The first published score of 1767, together with Handel's documented adaptations and recompositions of various movements, has been the basis for many performing versions since the composer's lifetime. Modern performances which seek authenticity tend to be based on one of three 20th-century performing editions. These all use different methods of numbering movements: The edition edited by Friedrich Chrysander and Max Seiffert for the Deutsche Händel-Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1902) is not a general performing edition, but has been used as a basis of scholarship and research. In addition to Mozart's well-known reorchestration, arrangements for larger orchestral forces exist by Goossens and Andrew Davis; both have been recorded at least once, on the RCA and Chandos labels respectively.
Messiah (Handel) | Editions
A fashion for large-scale performances began in 1784, in a series of commemorative concerts of Handel's music given in Westminster Abbey under the patronage of King George III. A plaque on the Abbey wall records that "The Band consisting of DXXV [525] vocal & instrumental performers was conducted by Joah Bates Esqr." In a 1955 article, Sir Malcolm Sargent, a proponent of large-scale performances, wrote, "Mr Bates ... had known Handel well and respected his wishes. The orchestra employed was two hundred and fifty strong, including twelve horns, twelve trumpets, six trombones and three pairs of timpani (some made especially large)." In 1787 further performances were given at the Abbey; advertisements promised, "The Band will consist of Eight Hundred Performers".
Messiah (Handel) | 18th century
He was despised Isaiah wrote in his Songs of the suffering servant in the fourth song about the Man of Sorrows: "He was despised, rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (). Isaiah states in his songs that "the Messiah will play a substitutionary sacrificial role on behalf of his people". Handel gives the pitiful description to the alto solo in the longest movement of the oratorio in terms of duration. It is a da capo aria, showing two contrasting moods, set in E-flat major in the first section, C minor in the middle section. The vocal line begins with an ascending fourth on "he was" and adds another one on "despi-sed", ending as a sigh.
Messiah Part II | 23
Saul (HWV 53) is a dramatic oratorio in three acts written by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Charles Jennens. Taken from the First Book of Samuel, the story of "Saul" focuses on the first king of Israel's relationship with his eventual successor, David; one which turns from admiration to envy and hatred, ultimately leading to the downfall of the eponymous monarch. The work, which Handel composed in 1738, includes the famous "Dead March", a funeral anthem for Saul and his son Jonathan, and some of the composer's most dramatic choral pieces. "Saul" was first performed at the King's Theatre in London on 16 January 1739.
Saul (Handel) | Introduction
Jennens got his way; in the completed version "Saul" does not end with a chorus of "Hallelujahs" but there is such a chorus where Jennens had wanted one. Handel composed the music of "Saul" between July and September 1738. He conceived "Saul" on the grandest scale and included a large orchestra with many instrumental effects which were unusual for the time including a carillon (a keyboard instrument which makes a sound like chiming bells); a specially constructed organ for himself to play during the course of the work; trombones, not standard orchestral instruments at that time, giving the work a heavy brass component; large kettledrums specially borrowed from the Tower of London; extra woodwinds for the Witch of Endor scene; and a harp solo.
Saul (Handel) | Composition and instrumentation
Many admirers of Handel believed that the composer would have made such additions, had the appropriate instruments been available in his day. Shaw argued, largely unheeded, that "the composer may be spared from his friends, and the function of writing or selecting 'additional orchestral accompaniments' exercised with due discretion." One reason for the popularity of huge-scale performances was the ubiquity of amateur choral societies. The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham wrote that for 200 years the chorus was "the national medium of musical utterance" in Britain. However, after the heyday of Victorian choral societies, he noted a "rapid and violent reaction against monumental performances ...
Messiah (Handel) | 19th century
As the oratorio moves forward with various shifts in key to reflect changes in mood, D major emerges at significant points, primarily the "trumpet" movements with their uplifting messages. It is the key in which the work reaches its triumphant ending. In the absence of a predominant key, other integrating elements have been proposed. For example, the musicologist Rudolf Steglich has suggested that Handel used the device of the "ascending fourth" as a unifying motif; this device most noticeably occurs in the first two notes of "I know that my Redeemer liveth" and on numerous other occasions. Nevertheless, Luckett finds this thesis implausible, and asserts that "the unity of "Messiah" is a consequence of nothing more arcane than the quality of Handel's attention to his text, and the consistency of his musical imagination".
Messiah (Handel) | Overview