6th Day Christmas Past Re-cast Question and Story

If Handel’s father had had his way, the “Hallelujah Chorus” would never have been written. His father was a “surgeon-barber,” a no-nonsense, practical man who was determined to send his son to law school. Even though Handel showed extraordinary musical talent as a child, his father refused for several years to permit him to take lessons.  When Handel was eight or nine years old, a duke heard him play an organ postlude following a worship service. Handel’s father was summarily requested to provide formal music training for the boy. By the time Handel turned 12, he had written his first composition and was so proficient at the organ that he substituted, on occasion, for his own teacher.

Young Handel continued to master the clavichord, oboe, and violin, as well as composition through the years. In 1702 he entered the University of Halle to study law out of respect for his late father’s desire. But he soon abandoned his legal studies and devoted himself entirely to music.  He became a violinist and composer in a Hamburg opera theater, then worked in Italy from 1706 to 1710 under the patronage of their music-loving courts. In 1712, after a short stay at the court of Hanover, he moved to England, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Handel set to work composing on August 22 in his little house on Brook Street in London. Handel never left his house for those three weeks.  He did not get much sleep and fasted often. When his assistants brought him his meals, they were left uneaten as Handel was “almost in another world.” A friend who visited him as he composed found him sobbing with intense emotion. After he just finished writing the “Hallelujah Chorus”, Handel had tears streaming down his face. “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself.” Later, as Handel groped for words to describe what he had experienced, he quoted St. Paul, saying, “Whether I was in the body or out of my body when I wrote it I know not.”  Within six days Part One was complete. In nine days more he had finished Part Two, and in another six, Part Three. The orchestration was completed in another two days. In all, 260 pages of manuscript were filled in with remarkable speed in a short time of 24 days!

Sir Newman Flower, one of Handel’s many biographers, summed up the consensus of history: “Considering the immensity of the work and the short time involved, it will remain, perhaps forever, the greatest feat in the whole history of music composition and seems to have come about through Heavenly power.” Handel’s title for the commissioned work was, simply, Messiah.

What makes this even more astounding is the sheer scale of the 259-page score. Richard Luckett, author of Handel’s Messiah: A Celebration, writes that there are some uncorrected errors or blotted out notes but remarkably few mistakes given the speed of Handel’s writing.  NPR music commentator Miles Hoffman estimates there are roughly a quarter of a million notes in Messiah. At a little more than three weeks of 10-hour days, Hoffman said that means Handel would have had to keep a continuous pace writing 15 notes a minute.

“Handel’s Messiah was not originally intended as a Christmas piece.  Librettist Charles Jennens, who was a close friend and collaborator with Handel, used the biblical stories of Jesus for the Messiah’s text. Jennens described his work as “a meditation of our Lord as Messiah in Christian thought and belief.”  The first third of the work was about the birth of Jesus. The second act covers the death of Jesus and the third focused on his resurrection. As such, the piece was originally conceived as a work for Easter and was premiered in the spring during the Lent season on April 13, 1742, as one of a series of charity concerts presented at Neal’s Music Hall on Fishamble Street in Dublin.  Because of the excitement surrounding the anticipated premier of “Messiah”, audience members were asked for certain consideration in order to increase the capacity of the concert hall, men were asked to leave their dress swords at home and women were asked to not wear their wide hooped skirts.  By the 19th century, Messiah became a regular December staple particularly in the United States.

An often repeated legend about Messiah tells the story of King George II who was so moved by the “Hallelujah” chorus during the London premiere of Messiah that he rose to his feet and then everyone in attendance followed suit as not to be sitting when the king stood.  Thus we believe the regularly debated tradition of standing during the “Hallelujah” chorus came to be. However, according to various experts, there is no truth to this story. In fact, there is no evidence King George II was even in attendance, and it is unlikely the newspaper writers that were in the audience would have overlooked mentioning a royal presence. The first reference to this story was a letter written 37 years after the fact.

Handel personally conducted more than thirty performances of Messiah, rearranging it to match the various performers and instruments.  In consequence, no single version can be regarded as the “authentic” one. Many more variations and rearrangements were added in subsequent centuries–a notable arrangement was one by Mozart, translated into German.

Many of these concerts he conducted were benefits for the Foundling Hospital, of which Handel was a major benefactor. The thousands of pounds Handel’s performances of Messiah raised for charity led one biographer to note, “Messiah has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, fostered the orphan … more than any other single musical production in this or any country.” Another wrote, “Perhaps the works of no other composer have so largely contributed to the relief of human suffering.”

Handel was buried in Westminster Abbey, with over 3,000 in attendance at his funeral. A statue erected there shows him holding the manuscript for the solo that opens Part Three of Messiah, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”

Taken from all pulled on Dec 2, 2018:

https://www.thetabernaclechoir.org/articles/history-of-handels-hallelujah-chorus.html

https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/bibleandculture/2009/12/handels-messiah-the-story-behind-the-classic.html#S5ysCIExATy4L5Xd.99

https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/messiah-and-george-frideric-handel-11630237.html