Messiah (Handel)

Handel's reputation in England, where he had lived since 1712, had been established through his compositions of Italian opera. He turned to English oratorio in the 1730s in response to changes in public taste; Messiah was his sixth work in this genre. Although its structure resembles that of opera, it is not in dramatic form; there are no impersonations of characters and no direct speech. Instead, Jennens's text is an extended reflection on Jesus as the Messiah called Christ. The text begins in Part I with prophecies by Isaiah and others, and moves to the annunciation to the shepherds, the only "scene" taken from the Gospels. In Part II, Handel concentrates on the Passion of Jesus and ends with the Hallelujah chorus. In Part III he covers Paul's teachings on the resurrection of the dead and Christ's glorification in heaven.


Handel wrote Messiah for modest vocal and instrumental forces, with optional alternate settings for many of the individual numbers. In the years after his death, the work was adapted for performance on a much larger scale, with giant orchestras and choirs. In other efforts to update it, its orchestration was revised and amplified, such as Mozart's Der Messias. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the trend has been towards reproducing a greater fidelity to Handel's original intentions, although "big Messiah" productions continue to be mounted. A near-complete version was issued on 78 rpm discs in 1928; since then the work has been recorded many times.


The autograph manuscript of the oratorio is preserved in the British Library.

Recordings[edit]

Many early recordings of individual choruses and arias from Messiah reflect the performance styles then fashionable—large forces, slow tempi and liberal reorchestration. Typical examples are choruses conducted by Sir Henry Wood, recorded in 1926 for Columbia with the 3,500-strong choir and orchestra of the Crystal Palace Handel Festival, and a contemporary rival disc from HMV featuring the Royal Choral Society under Sargent, recorded at the Royal Albert Hall.^[134]


The first near-complete recording of the whole work (with the cuts then customary)^{[n 11]} was conducted by Beecham in 1928. It represented an effort by Beecham to "provide an interpretation which, in his opinion, was nearer the composer's intentions", with smaller forces and faster tempi than had become traditional.^[97] His contralto soloist, Muriel Brunskill, later commented, "His tempi, which are now taken for granted, were revolutionary; he entirely revitalised it".^[91] Nevertheless, Sargent retained the large-scale tradition in his four HMV recordings, the first in 1946 and three more in the 1950s and 1960s, all with the Huddersfield Choral Society and the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.^[91] Beecham's second recording of the work, in 1947, "led the way towards more truly Handelian rhythms and speeds", according to the critic Alan Blyth.^[91] In a 1991 study of all 76 complete Messiahs recorded by that date, the writer Teri Noel Towe called this version of Beecham's "one of a handful of truly stellar performances".^[91]


In 1954 the first recording based on Handel's original scoring was conducted by Hermann Scherchen for Nixa,^{[n 12]} quickly followed by a version, judged scholarly at the time, under Sir Adrian Boult for Decca.^[135] By the standards of 21st-century performance, however, Scherchen's and Boult's tempi were still slow, and there was no attempt at vocal ornamentation by the soloists.^[135] In 1966 and 1967 two new recordings were regarded as great advances in scholarship and performance practice, conducted respectively by Colin Davis for Philips and Charles Mackerras for HMV. They inaugurated a new tradition of brisk, small-scale performances, with vocal embellishments by the solo singers.^{[n 13]} A 1967 performance of Messiah by the Ambrosian Singers conducted by John McCarthy accompanying the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Charles Mackerras was nominated for a Grammy Award.^[138] Among recordings of older-style performances are Beecham's 1959 recording with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with orchestration commissioned from Sir Eugene Goossens and completed by the English composer Leonard Salzedo,^[91] Karl Richter's 1973 version for DG,^[139] and David Willcocks's 1995 performance based on Prout's 1902 edition of the score, with a 325-voice choir and 90-piece orchestra.^[140]


By the end of the 1970s the quest for authenticity had extended to the use of period instruments and historically correct styles of playing them. The first of such versions were conducted by the early music specialists Christopher Hogwood (1979) and John Eliot Gardiner (1982).^[141] The use of period instruments quickly became the norm on record, although some conductors, among them Sir Georg Solti (1985) and Sir Andrew Davis (1989) continued to favour modern instruments. Gramophone magazine and The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music highlighted two versions, conducted respectively by Trevor Pinnock (1988) and Richard Hickox (1992). The latter employs a chorus of 24 singers and an orchestra of 31 players; Handel is known to have used a chorus of 19 and an orchestra of 37.^[142] Performances on an even smaller scale have followed.^{[n 14]}


Several reconstructions of early performances have been recorded: the 1742 Dublin version by Scherchen in 1954, and again in 1959, and by Jean-Claude Malgoire in 1980.^[145] In 1976, the London version of 1743 was recorded by Neville Marriner for Decca. It featured different music, alternative versions of numbers and different orchestration. There are several recordings of the 1754 Foundling Hospital version, including those under Hogwood (1979), Andrew Parrott (1989), and Paul McCreesh.^[146][147] In 1973 David Willcocks conducted a set for HMV in which all the soprano arias were sung in unison by the boys of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge,^[148] and in 1974, for DG, Mackerras conducted a set of Mozart's reorchestrated version, sung in German.^[91]