Messiah: An HPO holiday tradition in the making
You can sing along or just enjoy the music when the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bach Elgar Choir collaborate for the fourth time on Handel’s beloved oratorio.
Handel’s Messiah is one of the best and most beloved classical works of all time and has become a holiday tradition for many. This is the fourth year the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bach Elgar Choir are collaborating on this performance. There is even a tradition within the piece itself. Even today, most people stand when the famous “Hallelujah Chorus” is heard. The tradition is assumed to have come about because King George II stood at that point when he heard the work in London. This would have obliged the rest of the audience to stand as well, and it seems, still obliges us to stand today.
Messiah is the world’s most famous English oratorio, but what exactly is that? An oratorio is musical storytelling with vocal soloists, choir and orchestra but it is quite different from opera. Gone are the staging, costumes and scenery and the text is purely sacred, usually from scripture. Handel didn’t invent the oratorio but he did create the English oratorio. What makes this surprising is that George Frideric Handel wasn’t English at all but was originally Georg Friderich Händel (1685-1759) from Germany.
Handel started as an organist in Germany but soon found himself in Italy writing for the operatic stage. After a few successful years, he returned to Germany in 1710 to accept the Kapellmeister position (music director) for the Elector of Hanover. This was a big position with a choir and orchestra at his disposal. Despite having this prestigious position, Handel answered a summons to appear in London. The Duke of Manchester, an acquaintance from his Italy days, requested Handel’s expertise at the new Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket. Why did his own royal patron allow this?
Oddly enough, the Elector of Hanover was in direct line for the British throne. Queen Anne had lost her husband and was nearing the end of her life with no dependents, despite 13 pregnancies. Rather than having the throne pass to a Catholic royal, it was determined that it should stay in the same religion and pass to a more distant relative, the Elector of Hanover, Handel’s boss. Once in London, Handel was reportedly given a task to send back word of Queen Anne’s health to Hanover but he clearly enjoyed his fame and opportunities in the big city. He returned to Hanover so late that he was dismissed from his German position in 1713 but it seems this was amicable. The Elector knew Handel needed bigger stages and besides, they would be meeting soon enough.
London audiences fell for Handel. They had lost their most famous composer, Henry Purcell, back in 1695 and were ready for their new musical leader. They quickly adopted Handel as one of their own. In 1714, Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover, became King George I of England. Handel was already in place and ready to help the public fall in love with their new King. Handel assisted through publicity stunts such as his Water Music, a new piece of music to accompany the King up the River Thames on a barge.
At this point, Italian opera in London was a cultural phenomenon. It had been introduced in 1708 and instantly took off. After his time in Italy, Handel was happy to join the trend and was able to personally recruit the best singers from Italy and bring them to London. He became an opera promoter as well. Though he had royal backing, he also sunk his own money into opera production and eventually suffered debts. Italian opera was unrivaled until John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera in 1728. This poked fun at the Italian opera tradition and was sung in English to well known ballads. People started to resent the outsized role Italian opera had in London culture and many found the plots and the production questionable on many levels. It was accessible only by aristocrats, nobody could understand the language, topics could be immoral, and it required castrati, castrated men who kept their boyhood soprano voices.
Handel stuck to opera throughout the decline with mixed success but eventually decided to try something new. He had written many English anthems for choir and orchestra with great success. His most famous was a coronation anthem, “Zadok the Priest,” for the succession of George II. It has become a tradition to perform it at every coronation since. Handel brought together his wealth of opera and anthem experience and fused it into his new English oratorio with sacred text. His English oratorios weren’t immediately successful in London. They were still sung by Italian singers, plus the tickets were expensive, among other issues. Even as he worked out the kinks, presenting oratorios in English seemed like a safer bet than mounting an opera.
Charles Jennens sent Handel the libretto for the Messiah out of the blue, though they had worked together before. Jennens was a wealthy landowner who wasn’t seeking fame or money but had an interest in literature and music. He compiled the libretto with excerpts from the King James Bible and Psalms from the Book of Common Prayer. Handel wrote the work in just 24 days (!) in 1741 and saw an interesting opportunity to premiere it in Dublin the following year on April 13. The work was so popular that ladies were asked not to wear hoops in their skirts and men were asked to leave their swords at home in order to allow more people to attend. They fit 700 people into a space for 600 on multiple nights with the proceeds going to charity. Irish audiences instantly loved it and took ownership of the work. Even today, there is an annual open air Messiah concert on Dublin’s Fishamble Street (at the spot where the Great Music Hall once stood) every April 13 to commemorate the event.
Messiah is in three major sections, each consisting of recitatives (vocal soloists reciting a lot of text), arias (lyrical songs) and choruses about Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection and ascension. There are also a couple of purely instrumental numbers but otherwise the instruments accompany the voices throughout. And yes, it is all sung in English.
The work was performed subsequently in London with moderate success, but it truly became popular after Handel’s death. Throughout the remainder of the 18th and 19th centuries, many organizations mounted massive versions of it. One particular instance included 2000 choristers and 500 instrumentalists. The trend in the 20th century was more in line with Handel’s intentions, which called for choir, vocal soloists, two oboes, two trumpets, timpani, strings and keyboard.
Come to the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and Bach Elgar Choir’s performance of Handel’s Messiah, Dec. 5, 7:30 p.m. and Dec. 7, 3 p.m. at St. Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church (620 Rymal Rd. E., Hamilton). If you come on Dec. 6, to the 3 p.m. show at Central Presbyterian Church( 165 Charlton Ave. W., Hamilton) you can even sing along … but you don’t have to. Be part of this standing tradition (literally, stand up when the “Hallelujah Chorus” starts) and bring your family and friends to start your own annual holiday tradition.
