People around the world associate Handel’s great masterpiece “Messiah,” with Christmas. But it was originally an Easter composition in three parts. The oratorio’s structure follows the liturgical year. Part 1 corresponds with Advent, Christmas, and the life of Jesus. Part II deals with Lent, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. Part III then continues with the end of the church year and to the end of time and the final consummation, with the chorus singing heaven’s anthem, “Worthy Is the Lamb” and “Amen!” The birth and death of Jesus are told in the words of the prophet Isaiah, the most prominent source for the libretto. The only true “scene” of the oratorio is the annunciation to the shepherds, which is taken from the Gospel of Luke. The imagery of shepherd and lamb features prominently in many movements, for example: in the aria “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd” (the only extended piece to talk about the Messiah on earth), in the opening of Part II (“Behold the Lamb of God”), in the chorus “All we like sheep,” and in the closing chorus of the work (“Worthy is the Lamb”).
It was first performed in the Music Hall in Dublin, Ireland on April 13, 1742, almost 300 years ago. The audience swelled to a record 700, and ladies had heeded pleas by management to wear dresses “without Hoops” in order to make “Room for more company.” The men and women in attendance sat mesmerized from the moment the tenor followed the mournful string overture with his piercing opening line: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” It has been “Messiah” which has elevated Handel to musical superstar status, with Beethoven himself calling Handel “the greatest composer that ever lived.” Since most of Handel’s work was in secular music and opera, many would prefer to accord that status to Johann Sebastian Bach, whose music was primarily written for use in worship.
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) spent most of his career in England, but was born in Halle, Germany, into a religious, affluent household. His father, a celebrated surgeon in northern Germany, wanted his son to study the law. But an acquaintance, the Duke of Weissenfels, heard the prodigy, then barely 11, playing the organ. Handel would go on to write six organ concertos, intending that they be performed during performances of other works, almost as intermission interludes. The nobleman’s recognition of the boy’s genius likely influenced the doctor’s decision to allow his son to become a musician. By 18, Handel had composed his first opera, “Almira,” initially performed in Hamburg in 1705. During the next five years, he was employed as a musician, composer and conductor at courts and churches in Rome, Florence, Naples and Venice, as well as in Germany, where the Elector of Hanover, the future King George I of England, was briefly his patron.
Handel’s restless independence contrasted him with the other great composer of the age, Johann Sebastian Bach, born the same year (1685-1750), whom Handel never met. Bach never moved out of the cocoon of court patronage or church employment. Handel, on the other hand, rarely attached himself to any benefactor for long, although he would compose court music when asked. He wrote “The Water Music” in 1717, one of the few of his pieces other than “Messiah” recognizable to the average listener. He wrote it for King George I, to be performed for the monarch as His Majesty’s barge navigated through a London canal on a summer evening. Such free-spirited musical entrepreneurship was more than possible in London, to which Handel had moved permanently in 1710. A commercial boom underpinned by overseas trade had created a thriving new merchant and professional class that broke the monopoly on cultural patronage by the nobility.
Increasingly elaborate opera productions led to rising costs due, in part, to hiring musicians and singers from Italy. In the 1730s, the emotional and financial toll of producing operas, as well as changing audience tastes, contributed to Handel’s growing interest in sacred oratorios, which required neither elaborate scenery nor foreign stars.
Despite his fame, Handel’s inner life remains enigmatic. We know far more about the environment in which he lived and the sort of people he knew than about his private life. Part of the explanation lies in the dearth of personal letters. Music historians must rely on contradictory descriptions of Handel by admirers and detractors, whose opinions were colored by the musical rivalries of 1700s London. Not only do we have much more information about the life of Johann Sebastian Bach, the two also stand in stark contrast spiritually. Bach’s theological knowledge and personal devotion to the Lord is legendary. For a layman, he had a surprisingly large personal library of doctrinal works, and left the initials JJ (Jesus Help) and SDG (to the glory of God alone) on most of his manuscripts.
Although Handel neither married nor was known to have had a long-lasting romantic relationship, he was pursued by various young women and a leading Italian soprano, Vittoria Tarquini, according to accounts by his contemporaries. Intensely loyal to friends and colleagues, he was capable of appalling temper outbursts. Because of a dispute over seating in an orchestra pit, he fought a near-fatal duel with a fellow composer and musician, Johann Mattheson, whose sword thrust was blunted by a metal button on Handel’s coat. During rehearsals at a London opera house with Francesca Cuzzoni, Handel grew so infuriated by her refusal to follow his every instruction that he grabbed her by the waist and threatened to hurl her out an open window. “I know well that you are a real she-devil, but I will have you know that I am Beelzebub!” he screamed at the terrified soprano.
Handel, who grew increasingly obese over the years, certainly had an intimidating physique. “He paid more attention to (food) than is becoming to any man,” wrote Handel’s earliest biographer, John Mainwaring, in 1760. Artist Joseph Goupy, who designed scenery for Handel operas, complained that he was served a meager dinner at the composer’s home in 1745; only afterward did he discover his host in the next room, secretly gorging on “claret and French dishes.” The irate Goupy produced a caricature of Handel at an organ keyboard, his face contorted into a pig snout, surrounded by fowl, wine bottles and oysters strewn at his feet. “He may have been mean with food, but not with money,” wrote Keates. Amassing a fortune through his music and shrewd investments in London’s burgeoning stock market, Handel donated munificently to orphans, retired musicians and the ill. He gave his portion of his “Messiah” debut proceeds to a debtors’ prison and hospital in Dublin, a generous gift that enabled 143 men to go free! As a gesture of thanks, Handel’s Irish bankers returned the favor by paying off some of his own London debts.
Handel composed “Messiah” in an astounding short time, just 24 days in August and September 1741. He would literally write from morning to night, sometimes hardly even pausing for food and drink. His aides would often come to his room and find that food previously delivered to him was still on the plate, uneaten. The text was prepared ahead of time in July by the prominent librettist, Charles Jennens, and was intended for an Easter performance the following year.
“Messiah’s” success in Dublin was in fact quickly repeated in London. There is little doubt about Handel’s own fondness for the work. His annual benefit concerts for his favorite charity, London’s Foundling Hospital, a home for abandoned and orphaned children, always included “Messiah.” And, in 1759, when he was blind and in failing health, he insisted on attending an April 6 performance of “Messiah” at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. Eight days later, Handel died at home. His total estate was assessed at 20,000 pounds, which made him a millionaire by modern standards. He left the bulk of his fortune to charities and much of the remainder to friends, servants and his family in Germany. His one posthumous present to himself was £600 for his own monument at Westminster Abbey, final resting place for British monarchs and their most accomplished subjects. Three years after Handel’s death, the monument by French sculptor Louis François Roubillac, was installed.
On composing the “Hallelujah” chorus, Handel is said to have remarked in 1741, “Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it, I know not. God knows.” He further commented afterward, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me and the great God Himself.” It has been customary for the audience or congregation to stand whenever it is sung. According to tradition, that practice started because when the king of England first heard the chorus, he was so moved that he stood up. Since no one could sit when the king was standing, everyone in the audience stood up as well. We continue that today, but now realizing that the King of kings, King Jesus Himself, is standing before us!
The text for the chorus comes from Revelation 11:15; 19:6, 16.
15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
The context there in Revelation is that of the ultimate, decisive victory Jesus will have over Satan and the enemies of God. It will be the final achievement of what was promised in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:15. There continues to be enmity in this world, even to this day, between the seed of the serpent (Satan) and the seed of the woman (Jesus). God promised that the seed of the serpent will bruise the heel of the seed of the woman (a wounding blow on the cross), but the seed of the woman will crush the head of the seed of the serpent (a fatal blow at the resurrection).
We long to see the day of that victory as we continue struggling against the world, the flesh, and the devil. We agonize through reports of war and famine, of abuse and corruption, of disease and disasters of too many kinds. But the promise holds that the day will come, as we sing in this chorus, when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. When Jesus returns, He will create this as a new heaven and new earth in which there will be no sadness, as He dwells with His bride. And it will mark that day when, at long last, the Lord God omnipotent will cast Satan and all who have chosen loyalty to him into the pit forever. And it will be a “forever” throughout which the Jesus will reign as King of kings and Lord of lords, blessing us, His people, with His infinite loving goodness. “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”
Here is a link to a performance from the Sydney Opera House.