Handel’s ‘Messiah’ strikes a lightning bolt. Hallelujah!

Having not found any large venues in the corridor region of Eastern Iowa hosting performances of Handel’s oratorio, Messiah, this holiday season, I thought, instead, I could present a history of the heralded musical masterpiece. It’s one we in the Western world, particularly in the United States, take for granted every year.

The author of this column first had the privilege to experience its invigorating choruses while a resident of the Windy City at the Civic Opera House in Chicago, which played home to a singalong of the classic every winter season.

That tradition continued after I moved to metro Washington, D.C. and the Messiah performance was open to the public for free each year at Washington National Cathedral. The upbeat staccato of the Hallelujah Chorus is stimulating anywhere, but to hear it from some of the best voices in the world echoing off the soaring walls of the sixth largest church sanctuary on Earth, is nothing short of transformative.

But how did this all come to be … this sacred, for many, holiday tradition?

George Frederic Handel was born at Halle, Germany Feb. 23, 1685. The son of a prominent surgeon in northern Germany, he was expected to follow in his father’s profession. When he began experimenting with playing the organ at the family’s church as a child, he expressed a desire to someday pursue music as a career.

His father, though, would not permit what he thought would be a pauper’s fate, so Handel secretly learned to play other instruments with his mother hiding the lessons, and by the age of 10 the natural virtuoso had mastered the oboe, organ, and violin.

Despite composing small pieces which were performed at area churches, Handel’s father insisted his son, if he refused to be a doctor, attend law school. Handel dropped out in his first year and abandoned his father’s dreams to seek his own, receiving the position of violinist for the Hamburg Market Theatre.

While there, he also refined his composing to include operas. Italy was, at the time, the center for musical theatrics, and Handel’s works were performed in Rome, Naples, and Venice.

The opera, however, with its lavish sets and costumes, had become expensive, and the style of the arias performed in them grew old for Handel, while fewer people were attending these elaborate productions.

Handel, then, started specializing in oratorios, musical stories without the decadent sets and apparel. England, somewhat behind the Italians in the operatic arts, but appreciating oratories as an artistic expression, welcomed Handel.

He was offered the position of Master of the Orchestra for the Royal Academy of Music and remained as its conductor (composer and musician) until forming his own institution, the New Royal Academy, in 1727.

His first opera there was titled “Rinaldo” and this was followed with new compositions multiple times per season. At the apex of this success, the King of England, though, banned the performance of religious plays at secular theaters.

Seeing an opportunity, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in 1741, invited Handel to Dublin where he was introduced to Charles Jennens, who had just penned a libretto (words telling the story of Christ) in what he hoped would be a successful oratorio for the people of the Emerald Isle.

The words were exuberant, “Hallelujah (meaning “praise be to God” in Hebrew) was repeated many times with references to Jesus, and how, through his passion, he shall reign over humanity forever. Handel was equally inspired, and put together an accompanying melody that grew in intensity until reaching a high crescendo as an epiphany.

Handel’s butler, who was at the beck and call to tend to the prestigious maestro’s needs, reported seeing Handel often in tears as he worked on the music from sun up to sun down. With that devotion, the entire composition took only three weeks to complete, and once done in September of 1741, publicity was prepared for its debut in the Spring (Messiah was originally intended as a celebration of the Resurrection, which along with the Nativity, was one of the features of its libretto).

The Music Hall in Dublin was packed and overflowing with patrons wishing to hear the innovative oratorio that was promised. No one was disappointed, and every aficionado in attendance as the pinnacle Hallelujah Chorus concluded, was spellbound by its intensity and verve. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, upon hearing it later, summed up its powerful resonance by stating “When he (Handel) chooses, he strikes like a lightning bolt.”

This is exactly what the oratorio did for Handel and Jennens. The piece generated such acclaim that King George II insisted that the composition be performed in London, even if at a secular venue. He, himself, would preside over the audience at the British capital’s Covent Garden Theatre on March 23, 1743, and as the choir chimed out Hallelujah in the second set, the King was so moved, he immediately stood up on his feet, enraptured by the energy of their voices (this is why, at most performances today, it is customary for the audience to stand when the rousing chorus begins).

Handel’s star continued to shine as he remained in London the rest of his life. Enjoying a good meal, he suffered from obesity in his later years, endured two strokes, survived and recovered from each, then went on to compose music until, it is believed, diabetes robbed him of his sight in 1752. Not to be denied his passion, he still played the organ by memory and sound until his death, at age 74, in 1759.

George Frederic Handel, the German who rose to acclaim in Italy, and perfected his career in Great Britain, was buried, with honors, beneath the floor of Westminster Abbey. Ludwig von Beethoven said of him, “He is the greatest composer who ever lived.”

Hallelujah!

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.

Opinion content represents the viewpoint of the author or The Gazette editorial board. You can join the conversation by submitting a letter to the editor or guest column or by suggesting a topic for an editorial to editorial@thegazette.com