Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online. Liverpool John Moores University Series Messiah Saturday 6 January pm

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1 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online Liverpool John Moores University Series Messiah Saturday 6 January pm GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL ( ) Handel was born in Halle in Germany on 23 February The son of a barber-surgeon and a parson s daughter, he was intended for a career in the law. His father s antipathy to music was reportedly so strong that the young Handel resorted to smuggling a clavichord up to the loft of the family house so he could practice. The duke of Saxe-Weissenfels was impressed by Handel s talents when the young prodigy played for him, and advised his father to let him have proper lessons. His musical activities, as composer and organist, soon took over from his law studies, and in 1703 he moved to the bustling city of Hamburg. He applied for the post of organist at Lübeck, but was put off by one of the conditions, marriage to the none-too-comely daughter of the organist Buxtehude. After three years travelling around Italy, where he assimilated the latest compositional trends and had his first operatic successes, he returned to Germany in 1710 as one of his country s most gifted young composers. That year Handel became Kapellmeister at the court of the Elector of Hanover, George Louis, who was to become King George I in The composer had already visited London and, liking life in the city and aware of the favourable esteem in which he was held by the king-in-waiting, he decided to make it his permanent home after Though he adopted English nationality in 1726 and remained in London for the rest of his life, he never became

2 entirely fluent in English, liberally peppering his speech with German, Italian and French expressions. Intricately involved in the operatic scene in London, his music became increasingly influenced by the musical forms and traditions of his adoptive home. Written to an English libretto and in lying within the tradition of the Anglican church anthem, Messiah itself is English through-and-through. Around the time that Handel began work on Messiah, rumours were rife in London that he was planning to leave England for good, after the critical failure of his most recent operas. The immediate and lasting success of Messiah both at its premiere in Dublin and later in England proved an enormous boost to Handel s finance and status, and once again he was hailed as the greatest figure in London musical life. Handel s health began to fail in his last few years he was afflicted by a progressively worsening blindness, which was treated by the same oculist as his contemporary Bach. However, he remained musically active to the last. He died on 14 April 1759 and was buried with great ceremony in Westminster Abbey, fulfilling one of his last wishes. At his funeral, which was attended by three thousand mourners, he was celebrated as the greatest composer of his time. Ian Stephens 2018 Messiah A Sacred Oratorio In early June 1741, the wealthy landowner and patron of the arts Charles Jennens wrote to a friend telling him that he had completed the text of a new scriptural oratorio for Handel: 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 excels every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah Handel was

3 certainly glad of the offer, not least because his winter series of Italian opera had been a dismal failure and the new libretto provided a chance to recoup his losses. That he completed the entire work in a mere 24 days thus had as much to do with his impecunious circumstances as it did with any divine inspiration (the myth that the voracious composer left his food untouched as he wrote the piece is particularly hard to believe). Jennens s timing was also good because Handel had been invited to give a series of oratorio concerts in Dublin then the second city of the British Empire and here Messiah was first performed on 13 April 1742 at the New Music Hall in Fishamble Street. It was enthusiastically received and, at the particular Desire of several of the Nobility and Gentry, Handel repeated the work at his last Dublin concert on 3 June. However, reactions to Messiah in England were, initially at least, rather different. Here is Jennens writing after its London premiere at the Covent Garden Theatre in March 1743: Messiah was perform d last night, & will be again tomorrow, notwithstanding the clamour rais d against it, which has only occasion d it s being advertis d without its Name; a Farce which gives me as much of offence as any thing relating to the performance can give the Bs. [Bishops or Brethren] & other squeamish People. Tis after all, in the main, a fine Composition, notwithstanding some weak parts, which he [Handel] was too idle & too obstinate to retouch, tho I us d great importunity to perswade him to it. Not only were there tensions between librettist and composer but a public debate was raging as to the propriety of performing so religious a work in a profane place of entertainment. Hence, as Jennens peevishly noted, it had been ambiguously billed as A New Sacred Oratorio rather than its rather too specific Hebrew title. Letters and doggerel verse, both for and against Messiah, appeared in the London newspapers, adding to the general hullabaloo. The controversy was short-lived, however, and Messiah

4 was revived in 1745, now advertised under its correct title, Handel having at last corrected some of those weak parts noted by Jennens with whom good relations had now been restored. From 1750 onwards the composer made it the final oratorio in his Lent season at Covent Garden operatic performances being prohibited during that period of religious observance and every year regularly repeated it in the newly built chapel of the Foundling Hospital, these charitable events helping to quell any lingering puritan objections. The work would never look back and by Handel s death in 1759, Messiah was already established as the most popular and frequently performed of his oratorios. Outside London early performances included Oxford (1749), Cambridge (1759), Birmingham (1760) and Liverpool (1766). By the mid-1780s Charles Burney could write: And from that time to the present, this great work has been heard in all parts of the kingdom with increasing reverence and delight; it has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, fostered the orphan, and enriched succeeding managers of the Oratorios, more than any other single production in this or any country. But Messiah was to take on an even greater significance in British musical life. Large-scale performances in Westminster Abbey in 1784 and 1834 involving some 500 performers to some extent set the blueprint of what was to come. During the Victorian period a general increase in musical literacy and the availability of cheap vocal scores led to an exponential and widespread growth in amateur choral singing and Messiah became the rock on which this national tradition was built. The Victorians staged enormous performances of Messiah and other Handel works, most famously at London s Crystal Palace, featuring vast choral and orchestral forces that, though gross distortions of Handel s original intentions, transmitted an image of religious and imperial grandeur. Furthermore, as one contemporary rhapsodist claimed, the sheer scale of these performances somehow reflected the physical and musical stature of Handel himself: We are shown, not a diminished copy, but the natural proportions of the great musician;

5 and only by their help can the most ardent Handelian comprehend how gigantic he is. However, such excess was not to all tastes. In 1891 George Bernard Shaw remarked on the multitudinous dullness of a Handel Festival Messiah, adding Most of us would be glad to hear the work seriously performed once before we die. Shaw s attitude to Victorian excess was becoming increasingly widespread and the Messiah spectaculars eventually faded out during the 1920s. Nevertheless, the oratorio remained a central part of the professional and amateur choral repertoire. In the 1960s there was even a vogue for all-inclusive sing-in performances of the work. Yet, with the move towards authenticity in the performance of baroque music, the overall trend in recent years has been towards more modest vocal and orchestral forces. As tonight s performance will show, a leaner version of Handel and his beloved oratorio has re-emerged. Messiah is essentially an extended reflection on the nature of the Christian life based upon a text adapted from the Authorised Version of the Bible and the Coverdale translation of the psalms. Jennens organised the libretto in the conventional three-part structure. Part One is concerned with prophecies anticipating the Saviour and their accomplishment in his living form; Part Two narrates events from Christ s passion to the ultimate victory of his second coming; Part Three is an extensive commentary on Christ s role as Saviour. From the sublime beauty of Comfort Ye to its final triumphant Amen, the musical setting of Jennens s libretto is remarkably expressive and for this and other reasons Messiah still occupies an extraordinary place in both Handel s output and the Western musical tradition. It continues to appeal to believers and nonbelievers alike, not least because its deeply religious content is never dogmatically expressed. The Christian message of Messiah is conveyed with Handel s unerring instinct for drama he was, after all, the composer of 40 operas and the work is remarkable

6 for its wealth of memorable musical ideas, its vivid tone-painting and rich emotional palette. In Messiah, as a contemporary noted of its twin oratorio Samson, the Solemnity of Church-Musick is agreeably united with the most pleasing Airs of the Stage. Anthony Bateman 2018