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| George Frideric Handel The 1728 portrait by Balthasar Denner National Portrait Gallery |
The enduring
masterwork that is Handel's Messiah is a foundational pillar of the
western Canon.
George Frideric Handel (born Georg Friedrich Händel) hailed from Halle, in the Duchy of Magdeburg in Saxony, in that annus mirabilis of 1685, a magical year which also witnessed the birth of two
other Baroque giants, Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti.
A gifted
violinist, harpsichordist and organist by his teenage years, Handel did his Grand Tour in Italy, from 1706 to
1710, where he was deeply informed by Italian operatic and oratorio styles. Handel's
early efforts in these genres were applauded by his Italian patrons, with his opera, Agrippina, being all the rage in Venice. While
in Rome, Prince Francesco Ruspoli bestowed upon him the monicker, il caro Sassone ("The beloved Saxon").
Handel left Rome in 1710 and travelled to Hanover, to work for
George, the Elector of Hanover, who later became that George, King
George I of England. Handel left his employ in 1711 and settled in London, three years before George himself came over for his coronation. The King and Handel
were at odds for a while, perhaps because Handel had left Hanover, but after Handel presented him with the elegant Wassermusik (Water Music Suites), things went smoothly thereafter. Handel eventually even became a naturalized British subject, in 1727.
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| The Chandos Portrait of Handel by John Thornhill 1720 |
Although
Handel composed several oratorios soon after arriving in England, he made his
name by composing operas, most of which were scored for Italian libretti (opere serie, or "serious" operas).
For these works, he wrote a seemingly endless succession of bravura arias sung by many
of Europe's most famous and high-flying prima donnas and castrati, of which the
London audience could never get enough. They would crow that Handel was the
greatest German to bring Italian opera to an English audience.
Handel crafted
a trove of music in other genres - odes, anthems, cantatas, keyboard works,
chamber music, serenades, and songs - but for two decades he composed mostly
operas. However, by the end of the 1730s, the public’s appetite for opera
seria had faded. That posed little problem for Handel, as he promptly switched gears
and reinvented himself as a composer of oratorios, eventually writing twenty-seven of them, virtually
all set to English texts.
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| Handel at work by Philip Mercier c. 1735 |
An
oratorio is a composition for orchestra, choir and vocal soloists. Whereas
opera is musical theater, and both oratorios and operas contain dramatic
characters and arias, oratorios are usually composed around sacred topics, are
not staged, nor are there props or costumes. In an oratorio, the chorus plays
an essential role.
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| Charles Jennens (1700-1773) The librettist of Messiah |
In July, 1741, the librettist Charles Jennens offered
Handel a set of passages from the King James Bible as material for a new
oratorio, to be named Messiah. They
had already worked together on several prior efforts, including the oratorios Saul and Israel in Egypt. Jennens was
optimistic: "I hope that Handel will lay out his whole
Genius and Skill upon it, that the Composition may excel all his former Compositions,
as the Subject excels every other subject. The Subject is Messiah."
Jennens chose most of his selections for Messiah from the Old Testament (Isaiah,
Malachi, and Psalm excerpts from the Book of Common Prayer), with verses from two
of the canonical gospels of the New Testament (Matthew and Luke), the Book of
Revelation, and the epistle of Paul to the Corinthians.
The texts chosen by
Jennens do not flow as a narrative, but rather, are a collection of passages
which relate to the prophecy and witness of Christ's birth (Part the First), Christ's death and
resurrection (Part the Second), and
the redemptive response of believers (Part
the Third). The oratorio follows the liturgical year.
The textual material
seemed to have resonated quite well with Handel, who began composing Messiah on
August 22, 1741 and completed it in just 24 days. He signed the autograph
manuscript, SDG, an acronymic for Solo Deo Gloria, "Only to God goes Glory," prompting the suggestion that he had received some form of divine inspiration in writing the oratorio, given
the rapidity of its composition and the beauty of its form. This
astonishing speed, quality and inventiveness were a Handelian trademark; four
weeks after completing Messiah, he
put the finishing touches on his next oratorio, Samson.
Around this time, William Cavendish, the Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, invited Handel to Dublin to conduct a series of benefit concerts.
Handel, who was already frustrated with the fickle taste of the London public,
leapt at the opportunity. Messiah thus had its premiere not in London,
where Handel’s many operas and prior oratorios had debuted, but in Dublin, at
the newly opened Neale's Great Music Hall on Fishamble Street, to the
consternation of a great many back in England. Jennens himself was chagrined, commenting to
a friend that “it was some
mortification to me to find out that instead of performing Messiah here he has gone to Ireland with it."
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| Neale's Great Music Hall Fishamble Street, Dublin |
Messiah was a smash hit from
the very beginning. The morning after the first public rehearsal, a Dublin Journal critic raved, "it
was allowed by the greatest Judges to be the finest 'Composition of Musick'
that was ever Heard." A week
before the premiere, concert flyers around town provided this caution: "so that the largest possible Audience can be
admitted to the concert, Ladies are asked not to wear Hoops in their Dresses, and Gentlemen are requested to Remove their Swords."
The
premiere, on 13 April 13, 1742 was an unqualified success, with over 700 people
jostling for the 600 available seats. A reviewer in another Dublin paper the
next morning gushed that, "Words are wanting to express the exquisite Delight
that it afforded the Crowded and Admiring audience. The Sublime, the Grand, the
Tender, adapted to the most Elevated, Majestic and moving Words, conspired to
transport and charm the ravished ear."
The
first London performance of Messiah did
not take place until 1743 and received mixed reviews. Handel actually had to
change its title to A Sacred Oratorio
because of objections to using Biblical texts and theatrical performers in a
concert setting. However, by 1750, with a
benefit concert for the Foundling Hospital to which Handel also donated the autograph
manuscript of the work, Messiah became
a beloved annual London ritual which continues to this day.
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| A page from the autograph manuscript of Handel's Messiah |
Messiah is a universe unto itself. Handel, a successful composer of opera, crafted Messiah in operatic terms. The three Parts of the Messiah can be likened to the three Acts of his opere serie. Each Part is subdivided into Scenes. Each Scene is comprised of recitatives, choruses and arias. The arias require vocalists with operatic training to bring out all their texture and nuance.
Handel was also a master of pacing and drama, purposely composing a restrained and almost muted orchestral line, with spare but effective use of trumpets. Messiah unfolds with a gentle orchestral overture, what he termed a "Sinfony," as a plaintive prelude before the tenor and chorus enter.
Handel cleverly employed word painting to enliven Jennens' text. In the opening aria, "Ev'ry Valley Shall be Exalted," for example, Handel crafts a wavering melody to underpin the word "crooked," whereas he uses sustained whole notes to support the word "straight."
In the middle of Part the First, another wonder occurs, a moment when time stands still, as we hear the sweetly flowing pifa, a pastoral instrumental interlude which is evocative of the music of the pifferai, shepherd bagpipers who played in the streets of Rome during Christmastime.
The soprano's aria "Rejoice Greatly" is a tour de force, with stratospheric melismas on the word "Rejoice."
In the aria, "Thou Shalt Break Them," from Part the Second, the text is accompanied by angular, ascending and descending lines in the strings, which evoke something that is shattered. In Part the Third, there is a stunning episode where the trumpet brilliantly echoes the powerful bass solo, "The Trumpet Shall Sound."
The splendid choruses in Messiah are each an extraordinary example of power and dramatic
effect while bringing out the textual setting. This is most evident in the Hallelujah Chorus, where one hears
layer upon layer of intertwined and glorious melody. The story goes that at the first London performance, King George II was in attendance, and was so taken by the now famous Hallelujah Chorus, that he stood up, setting a precedent that is still adhered to by audiences worldwide.
Although Messiah is not centered on any specific tonality, it aspires towards the light and glory of the bright key of D major (two sharps). Indeed the sections which are accompanied by trumpet, and the orchestral ending of the oratorio, are all centered within that brilliant tonic.
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| Handel in 1748 by Thomas Hudson |
Handel conducted Messiah over forty times during his life, and tinkered with it incessantly, altering the orchestral forces or changing the key of certain arias, better to suit a particular vocal soloist. Foreseeing its popularity, Handel purposely wrote a spare orchestral score for Messiah, assuming that future composers would modify it, adding new instruments here and vocal color there.
In 1789, Mozart famously adapted the work to a German text, Der Messias, enriching it with the woody timbre of clarinets, amplifying the bassoon line, and replacing trumpets with French horns, largely because the rarefied technique of playing celebratory trumpet had become a lost art. Beethoven, in his Missa Solemnis, channeled Handel's "And He Shall Reign" fugue. Messiah continued to gain such popularity that by the 1880s it was being served up with gargantuan forces; an 1883 performance at the Crystal Palace in London featured five hundred orchestral musicians and a chorus of four thousand!
Most Handel Messiah performances today are based on the 1959 Novello vocal score, edited by Watkins Shaw, which in turn is based on the revered 1902 edition of Ebenezer Prout, with Parts and Scenes stemming from the first London performance of 1743.
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| Handel in 1756, at age 71, blind and paralytic, with a copy of the Messiah by Thomas Hudson |
Handel’s health inexorably declined through the last eight years of his life. He lost vision and was partially paralyzed as a consequence of a series of strokes. He became more religious and introspective, retreating into a cocoon of solitude. He continued to play the organ and occasionally acceded to conduct his beloved Messiah. Yet his will and drive remained indefatigable: during the last week of his life, he was still able to attend a performance of his favorite composition.
Handel died on April 14, 1759, at the age of seventy-four, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Having never married and having had no children, he left his estate to his niece, Johanna, and per four separate codicils, to a few friends, servants, and charities.
Handel's greatest composition, Messiah, lives on as one of the most beloved works of classical music. It is heard around the world, by small forces and large, in intimate historically performed efforts, or with large instrumental and choral groups. Yet, there is no right or wrong Messiah. There is simply Messiah, and it remains what it had always been envisioned by "Mr. Handel:" that wondrous oratorio - ever sonorous, sacred and sublime.
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| G.F. Handel, with the score of "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth" from Messiah Handel Memorial Westminster Abbey, London |
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