About the Composer

operatic tone – some sections, like “For unto us a child is born”, are of course recycled from decidedly non-sacred moments in his operas. And yet Jennens’ libretto solves the sacred/secular problem brilliantly: Jesus himself never speaks (unlike in, say, Bach’s Passions) and the prophecies, descriptions and commentaries are all in the third person. The solo singers represent as it were disembodied prophetic voices; the chorus takes on the roles of prophet, angelic host, angry mob or the voices of various apostles. But these incarnations are only temporary. No actor is identified with any single character, and the work thus maintains a level of abstraction which allows us to concentrate on the unfolding of the drama through text and music. By focussing not, like Bach, on the suffering and death of Jesus so much as the cosmic plan for salvation, Jennens displays what Ruth Smith calls a “generous faith” with its initial promise of comfort.

The work itself went through several incarnations – in fact there is no definitive version as Handel was obliged to revise, re-score and occasionally recompose depending on the performers at his disposal. After his death there were various ‘improvements’ made by, among others Mozart, who added parts for a classical orchestra including clarinets and brass, and of course the cast of thousands at the 1859 performance were not even pretending to give an ‘authentic’ reading. But by then Messiah was firmly established in Anglophone culture, having acquired its status as a quasi-liturgical work. Wagner, who tried to create a national consciousness through Germanic myth in his operas, only scoffed because Handel held a position that he coveted himself.

Abridged from a note by Gordon Kerry © 2006 GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685–1759) travelled extensively as a young man, developing a distinctive and lively hybrid of Italian, German and French styles. At 25 he was appointed Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover, but he immediately deferred his appointment with an eight-month leave of absence in London, the hub of the 18thcentury musical world, where his opera Rinaldo was a triumph. Soon after his return to Hanover, he was again given permission to visit England, this time with the injunction to return “within reasonable time”. In the end, lured by new musical opportunities in London, Handel outstayed his leave but not his welcome. He was still in England in 1714 when his Hanover employer assumed the English throne as George I.

Handel’s years in Italy had consolidated his status as a force to be reckoned with in the opera scene, and this was how he’d made his name in London. When the English taste for Italian opera began to fade he turned to a new medium: the English sacred oratorio. Treating his biblical themes with the unerring dramatic instinct he’d brought to the opera stage, he delighted audiences with oratorios such as Israel in Egypt, Samson and – the most famous but not the most typical – Messiah.

DETAIL FROM THOMAS HUDSON’S 1756 PORTRAIT OF HANDEL WITH THE SCORE OF MESSIAH.

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