St John’s, Waterloo

Programme

• Messiah - Handel

George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
Messiah (1741)
Messiah was born out of frustration and straitened circumstance, and became the cornerstone of the English choral tradition only after almost a decade of carping and criticism. Following the failure of Handel’s last London operatic season he was contemplating a permanent return to Germany, but jumped at a fortuitous invitation in 1742 to visit Dublin and perform there. In his luggage was the score of Messiah. The work was jubilantly received there and raised £400 for local charities.

Nevertheless the work didn’t take off in London. Even the librettist, Charles Jennens, was vociferous in his criticism: ‘His Messiah has disappointed me … ’Tis in the main a fine Composition, notwithstanding some weak parts, which he was too idel [sic] and too obstinate to retouch … There are some passages far unworthy of Handel, but much more unworthy of the Messiah …’ and so on. It was only later in the 1740s, when Handel used Messiah to close his oratorio seasons and to raise funds for the Foundling Hospital on Coram’s Fields, that the work began to establish itself as a linchpin of his choral music.

Messiah contains some of Handel’s most compelling, elevating and athletic music for massed voices. Handel offered maximum variety to the chorus, from the astringent ‘Behold the Lamb of God’, announcing the Passion sequence, to the jaunty pastoralism of ‘All we like sheep’; from the austere fugue of ‘And with his stripes’ to the bustling ‘Let us break their bonds asunder’. Messiah’s power to move is undeniable: ‘Mad’ King George leapt to his feet at the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus, thinking he was hearing the national anthem (although it may just have been to relieve his piles); and on hearing the singing actress Susannah Cibber’s rendition of ‘He was despised’ in Dublin, a cleric in the audience proclaimed ‘Woman, for this be all thy sins forgiven thee!’

Handel is reported, on completion of the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus, to have turned tearfully to his servant and announced, ‘I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself seated on His throne, with his Company of Angels’. That’s testimony to the power of Messiah to move and inspire all those who hear or sing it, believer and non-believer alike.

Notes © David A. Threasher

East London Chorus
Alexander Chaplin - Conductor
Max Kenworthy - Continuo Organ
Aoife Miskelly - Soprano
Roderick Morris - Counter-tenor
Robin Bailey - Tenor
Laurence Meikle - Bass