Auckland Town Hall, 2018. joanne bremner
Programme Notes
by Heath Lees
On Christmas Day, 1867, The New Zealand Herald shared the following
message with its Auckland readers:
“Foremost among those dear old pleasures and recreations which the
associations of many Christmases have rendered . . . we place the annual
performance of Messiah by the members of the Choral Society . . . There is
hardly a spot in the whole of the civilized world where the name of Handel
is not known, or his works not performed; there is hardly an Englishman to
be found anywhere under the sun, who (at the least) has never heard of the
Hallelujah Chorus. Handel’s Messiah has withstood the tests of ages.”
So much for The New Zealand Herald’s pride in Handel’s Messiah and in
Auckland’s musical growth — to say nothing of its recognition of the Hallelujah
Chorus as the jewel in Messiah’s crown. But could any Aucklander in 1867 have
imagined that this Christmas choral event would still be happening today, 150
years later? Or that the long and continuous tradition would be broken only
once since that date?
After a mere two years since coming into being, Auckland Choral Society
had publicly launched New Zealand’s first complete Messiah on 5 February,
1857. The sold-out hall that greeted it was as much a tribute to the enormous
popularity of Handel’s work as to the awakening cultural interest of the city.
Available lists of repertoire for the 1860s show a couple of years where Messiah
is absent, but from 1867 onwards the annual tradition began in earnest, with
at least one performance of Messiah around Christmas. Even in 1867 it was
clear that the Choral Society was fast becoming a city institution with Handel’s
Messiah as its permanent annual fixture.