Prelude

Jesus came down to earth in order to turn man’s heart away from the oppression of earthly suffering which, as his own Passion exemplified, is the lot of every man who is born and each who will die. Jesus entered into the world becoming the Word Incarnate so as to fix the heart of man towards the Kingdom of Heaven which ‘is not of this world.’ A place of complete harmony and no lack of fulfillment, where else is such a realm attainable on Earth except in music; a music whose words are culled from the Books of the Lord and whose composition be heralded by the composer as having enabled him to see the ‘great God Himself. Such a piece of the Western repertoire is Handel’s “MESSIAH”.

Handel: The Musician

George Fredrick Handel (1685-1759) was the greatest Baroque musician England ever produced and whose genius inspired the works of such later genius as the revolutionary Mozart immediately succeeding him as well as the sublime Beethoven, king of 19th century harmony. Handel at the age of 25 made London his place of permanence. There he would begin to climb the heights of musical mastery as well as public fame and canonical value. Having begun composing/ imitating the Italian opera which was in vogue, the success of these early English operettas had made him a presence to reckon with. This was not least due to the fact that not only had he learnt the form during his Italian apprenticeship, but also because he was a born- genius able to provide for the entertainment-hungry masses as well as the aristocratic and the critical elite. He resembled almost all the 18th century Masters from across the other arts. i.e. Dr Johnson the most learned man in England who published weeklies named ‘The Rambler’ and Alexander Pope, the most Augustan of the poets.

By 1741, however, at the age of 66, the year he composed his magnum opus, Handel was tired of being in ever rising debt due majorly to the popular tide that had turned against the opera. All of his previous three compositions had fairly flopped and he waited for a lightning bolt of inspiration to get out of his troubles. It arrived in the form of a parcel sent to him by his close collaborator Charles Jenns, a man of great literary and philosophical learning and who held a special regard for the musical genius of Handel. What he sent him was a ‘libretto’ or the contextual or verbal aspect of the work that the composer sets to music. Jenns had made a compilation of those passages from the Scriptures and the Psalms as found in the Book of Common Prayer and wanted Handel to compose an Easter-day ‘oratorio’ which is to sacred music what an operatic piece is to the secular subjects, but without the dramatization and characterization prevalent in the latter.

This brilliance of “Messiah” owes as much to Jenns’ moving selections which display him with an ear for an aesthetic appreciation of Scriptural material as much as it does to Handel whose music breathes life into the words. Both writer and composer were authentic men with a secular mindset and a private reverence for the sacred and the divine. The work presented by Jenns consisted of three parts.

‘Messiah’: The First Christmas Musical

Part 1: Five Scenes taken from the verses in the Old Testament foretelling Christ’ birth, the Annunciation and the promise of Redemption. This section being akin to an exposition, Handel takes the notes to such heightened expressiveness and unbearable anticipation that the listener readily believes in the truth behind the prophecy just as the people in the Book may have. The piece opens with the tenor’s measured and moving rendition of Isaiah 40:1, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” The end is heralded by the Chorus in the meditative lightness of anti-climaxes with Matthew 11:30, “His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.”

Part 2: The most moving section of the piece, this begins with the Passion (Christ’ Crucifixion and Death) followed by the Resurrection and the Ascension. In the final, seventh section arrives the infinitely famous “Hallelujah” chorus during which tradition dictates that the audience from front seat to the rafters, stand up in obeisance. It is after all entitled ‘God’s ultimate victory’. This closing passage midway through the piece to the rejoicing that is resplendent in the closing words of Hallelujah begins right at the beginning when the same Chorus ‘Behold(s) the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world'' John 1:29

Part 3: The finale is reached in this section by which time even the amateur listener has been more than deeply initiated into the glorification mysteries unfolding in this delectable rendering of idiosyncratic verses from across the Bible; the ones Jenns thought best render the experience of the Truth of the Messiah. This section is a brilliant attempt at describing the eternal reign of the Messiah in Heaven by the help of divine inspiration as provided by the Scripture. The text of this section enacts an overwhelmingly hopeful affirmation of how the miracle of Christ’s death (as foreshadowed by his birth) makes the path open for now-sinless mortals to attain immortality through the Christ-ian sacrifice. The first half of the section is dominated by souls of big, loud, grand trumpets, drums and clarinets as Handel’s divinely inspired creation invites the patient and contemplative listener to the opened doors of the Kingdom of God on the last day of Judgment. As Paul’s Epistles to the Gentiles (Corinthians) speak the most about the afterlife (and which is the discursive point of departure between Judaism and Christianity), Jenns renders ¾ of the finale using it as the source text.

Conclusion

Depending upon one’s sense of irony, pathos or simply, an understanding of the religion, it is a matter of historical record that the oratorio was meant as a musical celebration for the joyous occasion of Easter Sunday as the main thrust of the sentiment expressed is the glorification of the risen Christ. However, not long after its premier performance in Dublin in 1741, it started to become a staple of Christmas gatherings and is a staple for most Anglo-American orchestras. The amateur ones hold it in the highest regard while the more established ones see to it that it figures prominently in their program, if not for any other delight than that most popular one that is the token of the “Hallelujah” chorus.

When commenting upon the days of composition during which he is said to have not ventured out and stayed put in his office, Handel composed this 260-page long score containing nearly 20,000 musical notes a complete performance of which starches to nearly two-and-a-half-hours in a matter of three weeks). When commenting upon the days of composition during which he is said to have not ventured out and stayed put in his office, Handel is supposed to have said: “ I don’t know

A year after its hugely successful Irish premier whose proceeds were directed towards charity, Messiah saw its London premier which was repeated twice within a week. Whereas the public were not moved in proportion to the labor and the undeniable merit of the work, a comment in a newspaper presumably by a cultivated mind along the following lines has come down to us as witness of the greatness of the work.

“To harmony like his, celestial power is given,/To exalt the soul from earth, and make of hell a heaven.”

The hell referred to here was presumably those who hadn’t been entertained enough and when noblemen complimented him on providing entertainment to such a diverse group of people, Handel replied: “My lord, I would be sorry if I only entertained them; wished to make them better.

Nothing else said by many of the greats who came after can better exemplify the spirit in which the two great men undertook this collaborative enterprise. (apart from the overture, and other minor changes which were more than welcome to Handel, Jenns was deeply appreciative of it as he had designed it expressly for Handel’s eloquent yet poignantly humane musical style). A closing quotation from an authentic source confirms for now and ever the undying sublimity of this labor of love: “ ……The loftiness of its outlook has something of the classical architecture….but it’s simple and direct expression provides a softening element of humanity which conveys a DIVINE REVELATION in both personal and universal terms.”