Program Notes, ©2012 Lori Newman
George Frideric Handel Messiah (1741)
(Born 1685, Halle, Germany; died 1759, London, England)
If not for the fickle nature of music critics and audiences alike, Handel may never have written his masterpiece Messiah. Its composition was far less out of a sense of religious obligation or desire for pulchritude, and much more out of necessity to keep up with what was musically de rigueur at the time, not to mention the fundamental need to put food on the table.
Handel had lived in England for almost thirty years, writing his bread and butter—Italian opera. His hits were numerous and varied: Rinaldo, Giulio Cesare, Rodelinda, and Xerxes to name just a few. And then, as if overnight, the times and the musical tastes of England changed. Italian opera was no longer the venerated form it once was; aspersions were cast against its convoluted plot lines, ridiculous characters, the posturing of the singers, and so on. England was looking for a more “national” art form. With the composition and success of the Beggar’s Opera by Gay and Pepusch in 1728, that was not only sung in English instead of Italian, but that also brought English popular culture into the form of opera, Italian opera was all but kaput in England.
Enter the oratorio. Oratorio and opera have several things in common and seemed to be just what the English had been clamoring for. Oratorio, like opera, contains vocal soloists, a chorus, and an orchestra. Oratorios contain recitatives, arias, vocal ensembles of various sizes, instrumental interludes, etc. What are missing from oratorio, which is of course a mainstay in opera, are costumes, sets, action, and props. Also, the setting is quite different—operas are meant to be performed on a stage of an opera house usually depicting secular subject matter, while oratorios are meant to be performed in concert halls or churches and (usually) convey religious subject matter. Perhaps most importantly in the rise of the popularity of the new genre of the English oratorio—it was sung in English, adding enhancement to the listener’s experience, who at that time could have never conceived of the current trend of operatic supertitles that we now take for granted.
Handel fought against the new trend in music for most of the 1730s. He continued to try and write Italian opera and made a few lackluster attempts at oratorio, until finally his finances had dwindled to an alarming level. Handel was reported gravely ill (an exaggeration), depressed, washed-up, etc. He rarely left his flat and was all but written off by England. That is until he was visited in 1741 by the Duke of Devonshire, the Lord Lieutenant of Dublin who asked if he would be willing to write a new work whose proceeds would benefit several Dublin charities. Handel jumped at the chance to get away from England for a while and the commission seemed to invigorate him to new heights. He used the scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens who drew from the King James Bible and from the Psalms included in the Book of Common Prayer. Jennens wrote of his libretto, “I hope [Handel] 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.” Handel finished his Messiah in a mere twenty-four days. After completing the now famous and ubiquitous “Hallelujah Chorus” he ran into a servant and exclaimed, “I did think I did see Heaven before me and the great God Himself!”
Handel left for Dublin in November of 1741 and his arrival in Ireland received an overwhelming response. What was old news in England, was fresh and appreciated in Dublin. This began one of the happiest periods in the composer’s life. There was such a buzz around the composition and premiere of Handel’s Messiah that the rehearsal caused such a stir it forced Faulkner’s Dublin Journal to place the following announcement regarding Messiah’s premiere: “The Stewards of the Charitable Musical Society request the Favour of the Ladies not to come with Hoops [i.e., hoop skirts] this Day to the Musick-Hall in Fishamble Street. The Gentlemen are desired to come without their Swords, as it will greatly encrease the Charity, by making Room for more company.”
The work premiered on April 13, 1742 (senza hoop skirts and swords) and was met with rave reviews: “It gave universal Satisfaction to all present; and was allowed by the greatest Judges to be the finest Composition of Musick that ever was heard”—Dublin Journal. This jubilance did not follow Handel or his Messiah back to England. It premiered there about a year after its glorious Dublin review. It did not receive nearly the same reaction in England; in fact, it took more than ten years to finally reach the level of success of which we are now accustom.
Many similarities can be drawn between the structure of Handel’s Messiah and that of conventional Italian opera—it is broken into three parts (or acts in an opera equivalent), each of these are broken into what could be construed as “scenes,” broken further down into “movements.” This is where the similarities end. The Messiah is not written in dramatic form and there is very little direct speech included. There is no one character whose mission is narration and instead of someone portraying Jesus, the Messiah is more a commentary on the three periods of Jesus’s life—the Nativity, Passion, and Resurrection.
Handel surprisingly wrote the Messiah for a small complement of singers and instrumentalists. As time and musical tastes have developed, so have the musical forces used in Handel’s Messiah; it is not uncommon to see modern performances with upwards of hundreds performing onstage. ●
Program Notes, Lori Newman
