The writing of Messiah

This enduring masterpiece was written in 1741 in London, UK in Handel’s house at 25 Brook Street (now a Handel museum open to visitors), at tremendous speed, and was completed in the space of about three weeks. The texts selected by Charles Jennens encapsulate the central beliefs of Christianity. The content of the piece is imbued with profundities and hidden meanings, and the deep implications of life and death, good and evil, the past and the future, retribution and salvation, man and God. But Handel deals with all this in his distinctive style, in highly original music which is easy on the ear yet never banal. Some of the best-known numbers are:

● For Unto Us a Child is Born
● Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion
● I Know That My Redeemer Liveth
● The Trumpet Shall Sound

Like several of Handel’s oratorios, Messiah is epic in its scope and breadth, and Handel might be regarded as the Cecil B. DeMille of 18th century England.

The ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus

Messiah is in three parts, and Part II is brought to a rousing finale by the Hallelujah Chorus, probably the best-known number from the work. Even when only the Christmas portion is performed, the Hallelujah Chorus is added as a traditional coda:

Hallelujah: for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. The kingdom of This world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and
He shall reign for ever and ever, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, Hallelujah!

For Handel’s masterpiece, Jennens used his influence to supervise the wordbook - the 1743 equivalent of what you are reading now - and presents the work very much as if it were an opera, organised into three distinct 'Acts' and subdivided into scenes:

I (i) The prophecy of Salvation; (ii) the prophecy of the coming of Messiah and the question, despite (i), of what this may portend for the World; (iii) the prophecy of the Virgin Birth; (iv) the appearance of the Angels to the Shepherds; (v) Christ's redemptive miracles on earth.

II (i) The redemptive sacrifice, the scourging and the agony on the cross; (ii) His sacrificial death, His passage through Hell and Resurrection; (iii) His Ascension; (iv) God discloses his identity in Heaven; (v) Whitsun, the gift of tongues, the beginning of evangelism; (vi) the world and its rulers reject the Gospel; (vii) God's triumph.

III (i) The promise of bodily resurrection and redemption from Adam's fall; (ii) the Day of Judgement and general Resurrection; (iii) the victory over death and sin; (iv) the glorification of the Messianic victim.

Jennens's own explanation of Messiah, printed and distributed to his contemporary audience, can also illuminate a modern audience. It explains Jennens's thought process in taking seemingly random scriptures from the Mosaic Old Testament and the more benign teachings of the New Testament, reconciling apparent paradoxes, and enhancing our appreciation and understanding of Handel's musical settings.

After his successful Dublin trip, Handel returned to London, and the first London Performance of Messiah took place at the Covent Garden Theatre (now the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden) on March 23, 1743, in the presence of the King, George II. When he heard the words, ‘The kingdom of the world…’ the King rose to his feet and remained standing until the end of the number. Various explanations have been put forward for this startling behavior. It may have been in recognition that George’s earthly kingdom was subservient to the Kingdom of Heaven. It may have been as a mark of awed tribute to the composer. Or it may have been that His Majesty had nodded off and jumped up startled by the loud music.

As a matter of protocol, no-one could remain seated while the King was standing, so the whole audience stood throughout. The tradition remains to this day of the audience standing for the Hallelujah Chorus and is often observed even when there is no royalty present and even, it seems, among peoples who bear no allegiance to the British or indeed any monarch. On a later occasion, when the great composer Joseph Haydn heard the Hallelujah Chorus in Westminster Abbey, he also stood with the rest of the audience, exclaiming with tears in his eyes ‘He is the master of us all!’

Many other ‘Hallelujah’ Choruses have been written, by Handel himself and by other composers such as Purcell, so the idea was not a new one, but of course, the one in Messiah has eclipsed all the rest.

Versions of Messiah

Even during Handel’s lifetime, various parts of Messiah were revised and rearranged by him from time to time, often to suit the individual singers available for specific performances, so there is no single standard ‘authentic’ version. Handel died in 1759 at age 74, and the first major revision by another musician began in 1788. That musician was Mozart himself, who revised and re-orchestrated it to suit the resources available for a series of performances in Vienna. Among other changes, he made some cuts and added some woodwind parts.