The Prince of Peace

Each year about this time, the strains of Handel’s Messiah can be heard all across America and the world as we usher in the Christmas season. Performances of Messiah invite us to sing along in fellowship to the glorious music that proclaims Christ the Lord. In our family, Christmas signals a time to dig out the vinyl recording of Messiah and cue it up while we decorate the Christmas tree, occasionally singing along to the better-known choruses. Recently, I decided to take a little deeper look into Handel’s epic work and its origins.
 
The year was 1741, and the extraordinarily prolific and hardworking George Fredrich Handel was down on his luck. His most recent opera had been a flop, and he was deep in debt. Some even thought that he would give up music and leave London for good. Unexpectedly, Handel received a letter from one Charles Jennens, a devout Christian and long-time admirer of Handel’s work—as well as a writer and librettist, who had supplied Handel with texts for previous works. It was an invitation for Handel to set to music a new libretto. Jennens writes to a friend:

“Handel says he will do nothing next Winter but I hope I shall persuade him to set another Scripture collection I have made for him, and perform it for his own Benefit in Passion week. I hope he will lay out his whole Genius and Skill upon it, that the composition may excel all his former compositions, as the subject is Messiah.”

This invitation coincided with another unexpected invitation from the lieutenant governor of Dublin, Ireland, for Handel to compose and conduct his works for a benefit concert in the springtime. Things were looking up.
 
Jennens’ libretto for Messiah lays out the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and his eternal presence in the world. The text is drawn directly from the 1611 King James Bible. Biographer Christopher Hogwood writes, “The central doctrinal point – the identification of the founder of Christianity as the Messiah, the transcendent anointed king promised by the ancient Hebrew prophets – is made by a simple yet telling device: the events of the New Testament are related and explained through the words of the Old Testament prophecies. Most of the texts chosen are those specifically quoted by the New Testament writers as evidence for the Messianic interpretation of Jesus.”
 
On the title page of the composition, Jennens quotes 1 Timothy 3:16: “And without controversy great is the mystery of Godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached into the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”  That Jennens considered this subject matter greater than that of his previous libretti is further stated by his quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid which appears on the title page: MAJORA CANAMUS (“Let us sing of greater things”).
 
Handel set to work at breakneck speed to lay out the music that would honor these holy words. Working day and night he completed the 260-page manuscript in just 24 days. Handel, himself a devout Lutheran who had supported charities throughout his life, is said to have proclaimed as he penned the final Amen that concludes Messiah, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me and the Great God Himself.”
 
The Dublin premiere of Messiah took place on April 13, 1742, at a rather ordinary but spacious hall on Fishable Street. It was well attended and reviews of the new work were favorable, prompting a second performance that raised money “for relief of the prisoners in the several Goals and for the support of Mercers Hospital and of the charitable infirmary on the Inns Quay.” As a capacity crowd was anticipated for a second performance, attendees were advised accordingly, ”as a favor that the Ladies who honor this performance with their presence would be pleased to come without Hoops (hoop framed skirts) …and the Gentlemen to come without their swords.”
 
The London premiere took place in Covent Garden the following year but not without controversy. It seems that hard line clergy found it inappropriate that sacred texts be presented in a common theatre with bombastic instrumental accompaniment. Progressives, on the other hand, felt that the work should most certainly be performed in a church.
 
On March 23, 1743 the London premiere took place with King George II in attendance seated in the royal box. According to one observer, “Handel’s music had always thrilled and uplifted him.” With Handel conducting, the performance proceeded. “Upon hearing the first strains of the Halleluiah chorus, the King stood, as a gesture of respect to a King greater than himself. All in the audience also stood.” To this day the tradition of standing during the Alleluia chorus continues.
 
The life of Handel’s Messiah and its tremendous popularity through the ages was fostered by one final event. In 1748, Handel was invited to give a benefit concert for the Foundling Hospital for orphaned children. The performance was to mark the opening of the Foundling Museum, which would contain works donated by some of the most prominent artists of the day, including Hogarth, Gainsborough, and Joshua Reynolds. The benefit concert, which Handel conducted, was a huge financial success. Thereafter, Messiah was performed each year for the benefit of charity. As a final act of generosity, Handel left in his will a fair copy of the Messiah score to the governors of the Foundling Hospital, thus enabling the charity to continue staging benefit concerts, which they could not have done without the score and parts he gave them.
 
Today “Messiah finds itself among that tiny, illustrious handful of works that is perpetually in performance. Though it now most often finds itself nestled among the holly and ivy of Christmastime it is also increasingly programmed during the Easter season in which it was first presented,” notes conductor Christopher Hogwood. Messiah’s message to the world remains as fresh today as ever, that Christ is Lord. May we all rejoice. Halleluiah, Halleluiah, Halleluiah!