Ruth Smith
speaker
216 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 7 May
Ruth Smith’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Jennings started writing librettos for Handel partly because he was a Handel addict.
Any words united with his music become sacred for me, he said, which is extraordinary given that Jennings was a devout Anglican.
He wrote librettos for nobody else and he certainly wasn't looking for fame because he didn't sign any of them.
They were anonymous, which is why right into the 19th and 20th centuries there was some doubt whether this obscure country squire could actually have put the text of Messiah together.
Or conversely, well, that was an easy job.
It's just scripture verses.
But Jennings wanted to foster Handel's career in every possible way.
He was very generous to Handel in all sorts of ways.
By the time he comes to do the libretto for Messiah, he's got a permanent subscription with Handel for copies of all Handel's music.
He's already acquired all Handel's published music with generous subscriptions.
Now he wants every note.
And he built up an unrivaled Handel collection.
I mean, it's still unrivaled, though now dispersed.
But at the time, it was unique.
Jennings was depressive, lonely.
The times were out of joint for him.
He was concerned, as many were, many devout Anglicans were, about the decline of religious faith in Britain.
He was politically out of joint with the times.
Jennings believed in the divine right of kings.
The head of Charles I, the executed monarch, Stuart Monarch, was on his seal ring.
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