December 16-18 — Special

HANDEL’S MESSIAH

Friday, December 16, 2022 at 7:30 pm Saturday, December 17, 2022 at 7:30 pm Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:30 pm ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor Milwaukee Symphony Chorus Cheryl Frazes Hill, director

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL Messiah, HWV 56 PART I

1. Sinfonia (Overture) 2. Arioso (Tenor): Comfort ye my people 3. Aria (Tenor): Ev’ry valley shall be exalted 4. Chorus: And the glory of the Lord 5. Recitative (Baritone): Thus saith the Lord 6. Aria (Mezzo): But who may abide the day of his coming? 7. Chorus: And he shall purify Recitative (Mezzo): Behold, a virgin shall conceive 8. Air and Chorus (Mezzo): O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion 9. Arioso (Baritone): For behold, darkness shall cover the earth 10. Air (Baritone): The people that walked in darkness 11. Chorus: For unto us a child is born 12. Pifa (Pastoral Symphony) Recitative (Soprano): There were shepherds abiding in the field 13. Arioso (Soprano): And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them Recitative (Soprano): And the angel said unto them 14. Arioso (Soprano): And suddenly there was with the angel 15. Chorus: Glory to God 16. Air (Soprano): Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion 18. Chorus: His yoke is easy, and his burthen is light

INTERMISSION

HANDEL’S MESSIAH continued

PART II

19. Chorus: Behold the Lamb of God 20. Air (Mezzo): He was despised 21. Chorus: Surely he hath borne our griefs 22. Chorus: And with his stripes we are healed 23. Chorus: All we like sheep have gone astray 24. Arioso (Tenor): All they that see him laugh him to scorn 25. Chorus: He trusted in God 26. Recitative (Tenor): Thy rebuke hath broken his heart 27. Arioso (Tenor): Behold, and see if there be any sorrow 28. Recitative (Soprano): He was cut off out of the land of the living 29. Air (Soprano): But thou didst not leave his soul in hell 30. Chorus: Lift up your heads, O ye gates 33. Chorus: The Lord gave the word 34a. Air (Soprano): How beautiful are the feet of him 35a. Chorus: Their sound is gone out 36. Air (Baritone): Why do the nations so furiously rage together? 37. Chorus: Let us break their bonds asunder

Recitative (Tenor): He that dwelleth in heaven 38. Air (Tenor): Thou shalt break them 39. Chorus: Hallelujah

PART III

40. Air (Soprano): I know that my Redeemer liveth 41. Chorus: Since by man came death 42. Recitative (Baritone): Behold, I tell you a mystery 43. Air (Baritone): The trumpet shall sound 47. Chorus: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

This weekend’s media sponsor is WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO. The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes. Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on Telarc, Koss Classics, Pro Arte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout recordings. MSO Classics recordings (digital only) available on iTunes and at mso.org. MSO Binaural recordings (digital only) available at mso.org.

Program notes by J. Mark Baker

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

Born 23 February 1685; Halle, Germany Died 14 April 1759; London, England

Messiah, HWV 56

Composed: 1741 First performance: 13 April 1742; Dublin, Ireland Last MSO performance: December 2021; Ken-David Masur, conductor; Alisa Jordheim, soprano; Ginger Costa-Jackson, mezzo soprano; David Portillo, tenor; Ethan Vincent, baritone Instrumentation: 2 oboes; bassoon; 2 trumpets; timpani; harpsicord; organ; strings Approximate duration: 2 hours and 5 minutes

In a manic white heat, the 56-year-old Handel composed his beloved, best-known work in just over three weeks: Messiah was written between 22 August and 14 September 1741. Despite the appropriation and adaptation of music written earlier – most notably, several Italian love duets from July 1741 – the feat remains a miracle in the history of Western music. The master himself led the Dublin premiere the following spring. The proceeds went to several worthy causes, including the Charitable Musical Society for the Relief of Imprisoned Debtors. To this very day, Messiah continues to impact the social and cultural fabric of society. When he penned Messiah, Handel had been a part of London musical life for some 30 years, mainly as a composer of Italian opera. With the growth of the middle class, that genre started to fall into disfavor, a clear sign of opposition to the nobility, its principal patrons. Handel – a German in England creating stage works in Italian – then began also to write oratorios in English. Success came, though not immediately, with Messiah. Among Handel’s oratorios, Messiah is an anomaly: 1) There are no characters such as one finds in, say, Sampson or Saul or Solomon; 2) There is no plot in the ordinary sense; in other words, Messiah is not a sequence of scenes from the life of Jesus linked together to form a dramatic whole; 3) The words are taken entirely from the Bible, a characteristic shared only with Israel in Egypt (1739). The Scripture selections, compiled by art collector and music patron Charles Jennens (17001773), are divided into three parts. · Part I: The coming of the Messiah is foretold by the prophets and brought to fruition in the birth of Jesus. · Part II: Humanity is redeemed by Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. · Part III: The power of death is destroyed by Christ’s mighty resurrection. In Messiah, Handel uniquely fuses several musical traditions: Italian opera, the English anthem, and the German passion. He gleans the fruits of a lifetime’s musical experience, writing masterfully for the soloists and orchestra. But arguably it is the astonishing power and variety of the choruses that raise the work to a higher level altogether. A man of the theatre, Handel knew how to lay hold on the dramatic potential of a given text, cogently pointing up its significance. 280 years since its first performance, Messiah remains one of the greatest oratorios of all time, an icon in the history of European music. Its ability to speak to millions of people – regardless of culture or creed – remains forever undiminished.