program notes {
Listening to Messiah
Messiah’s heroic journey is divided into
three parts. Part I revolves around the
Old Testament prophecies (emphasizing the Book of Isaiah) of the Messiah’s
coming and culminates with his birth as
told in the Gospel of Luke. Indeed more
of Messiah’s text is drawn from the Old
Testament than the New, and, apart from
the Nativity story, the Gospel histories are
seldom used. Thus, the emphasis falls on
the broader meaning of Christ’s redemption of the human race rather than on the
details of Jesus’ life.
Part II meditates on human sinfulness,
the Messiah’s rejection and suffering, and
his sacrifice to redeem humankind; it
concludes with that famous song of praise
and triumph, the “Hallelujah” Chorus.
Finally moving into the New Testament,
Part III tells of the Messiah’s vanquishing
of death and the promise of everlasting joy
for the believer.
Handel did not leave behind a
definitive version of Messiah; instead,
he reworked numbers and re-assigned arias
to different voice categories
depending on the soloists available for each
performance. Messiah’s solo sections are
divided between recitatives, which place
greater emphasis on delivery of the words,
and arias, in which musical values and the
showcasing of the singer’s technical prowess
take precedence. The tenor’s two opening
numbers are a good example: “Comfort Ye,
My People” is an accompanied recitative
and “Every Valley” is an aria.
Perhaps the most stunning sequence
in Part I is the juxtaposition of the bass
soloist’s aria “The People That Walked in
Darkness,” with the beloved chorus “For
Unto Us a Child Is Born.” In a marvelous
example of musical text painting, the bass
literally wanders in a chromatically confused maze in the dark key of B minor.
The “great light” for which he yearns is
then joyfully revealed in G major as the
chorus salutes Jesus’ birth.
All the choruses, including the
“Hallelujah,” demonstrate Handel’s
exhilarating technique of mixing powerful homophonic or chordal utterances
(“Mighty! Counselor!”) with a more intricate polyphonic style in which each voice
part pursues its own elaborately decorated
line (“For Unto Us a Child Is Born”).
The origins of the ritual of standing for
the “Hallelujah” Chorus are rather misty.
Scholars believe that the Prince of Wales
may have stood up when he attended that
historic London performance in 1749.
Certainly by 1780, everyone in the audience was following King George III’s lead.
Perhaps even exceeding “Hallelujah” in
majesty and joy is the magnificent chorus
“Worthy Is the Lamb” that closes Part
III, the shortest of the three sections but
also the one most densely pa