Handel's Messiah
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find in the In Our Time archive. A reading list for this edition can be found in the episode description wherever you're listening. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello. In 1742, in a secular Dublin music hall, the first audience heard Handel's Messiah, a sacred oratorio, from its first word, comfort, to the chorus of hallelujahs, to the last word, amen. The librettist Charles Jennings had drawn from biblical texts prophecies about the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the Nativity, the suffering of Christ and his death, and the Day of Judgment and redemption for all. Handel continued to adapt his Messiah for later performances, and it proved to be one of his most popular works, becoming a favourite of massed choirs around the world far beyond the scale of Handel's original.
Well, with me to discuss Handel's Messiah are Ruth Smith, trustee and council member of the Handel Institute, Larry Zazo, countertenor and senior lecturer in music at Newcastle University, and Donald Burrows, emeritus professor of music at The Open University. Donald, I'd like to start with you. Handel was born in Halle in Brandenburg in 1685, but he'd been based in London since around 1714. What should we know about his life and reputation in London?
His reputation in London in the first place was as an opera composer. He also carried with him experience from the previous years. Trained as an organist in Halle, he signed up for the University of Halle. That only lasted a year. He was off to Hamburg, to the Opera House. He's then composing operas, playing from the harpsichord, leading the performances in Hamburg. That's while the leading composer is away. As soon as the composer comes back again, he's off to Italy. There's no opera in Rome, but he does other things. He does church music, and it's there he writes his first oratorios. And he goes to Hanover, where he is appointed Master of the Music at the court, but on the condition he makes that he can go elsewhere because he wants to carry on writing operas.
There's no opera in Hanover. And it's at that point that he then comes to London. He has to go back to his job in Hanover. But then he comes back to London again and the Elector of Hanover is in the next in line to the British throne. Which presumably was to Handel's advantage.
He foresaw this, to put it mildly there. Apparently Handel wrote this very quickly within the space of about three weeks or so. Was that usual for him?
He was a fast, intense worker. What we have with the autograph is a finished setting of the complete text. He started that on the 22nd of August, finished it on the 13th of September or whatever. It so happens that the 22nd of August is also a Saturday this year. If you wanted to try it out, get a few quill pens, a couple of pints of black ink and 250 pages of music paper and see if you can write it out in that time. So, you know, it is very... It is very quick, but it's the end of the process. Composition has happened up to that point. You don't just write the notes on paper. A lot of thinking has gone into that. And a lot of it's going on in his head. A lot of it's going on in his head. the business of composition from the first stage, which is reading Jennings' words and thinking, now, how's this going to go?
You have to think of the total structure of arias, what singers, who's going to sing this one, how's that going to go, what's the mood, is it major or minor key, is it fast, is it slow? And then, of course, the business of actual musical themes. ideas that sometimes the words stimulate a particular melodic line.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–11:49
2
What is Handel’s background and musical reputation in London before composing Messiah?
11:49–18:50
3
How quickly did Handel compose the Messiah and what was his creative process?
18:50–33:19
4
Who was Charles Jennens and why did his life shape the libretto’s theme of ‘comfort’?
33:19–50:04
5
Which singers and vocal forces did Handel have available for the Dublin premiere?
50:04–55:35