THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2019-2020 53
Program Notes
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685-1759)
MESSIAH, AN ORATORIO IN THREE PARTS
Duration: ca. 155 minutes
When The Florida Orchestra and Master Chorale
of Tampa Bay team up for their new production of
Handel’s Messiah, they will add another notch to a
growing record: The single most-performed piece of
classical music worldwide.
Sure, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Pachelbel’s
Canon take in some pretty good numbers, but
it’s hard to avoid Handel’s grand oratorio this
time of year – every year – as part of our holiday
tradition. Like Tchaikovsky’s annual Nutcracker,
Handel’s matchless wonder is a cash cow for arts
organizations, a challenge for performers, and
much-loved by listeners.
What makes this 280-year-old work so popular?
For one thing, Handel knew how to write a good
tune, and Messiah has plenty of them, said Brett
Karlin, artistic director for the Master Chorale.“ The
single-most attractive quality about Messiah is its
melodies,’’ he said. “The piece is hit after hit after hit.’’
Messiah is an oratorio, a large-scale work based on
sacred text, but without sets, costumes, or action.
Drawing from the Old and New Testaments, Handel
designed it in three sweeping sections: Prophecy
and Fulfillment, Suffering, and Redemption.
Although religious, its message remains universal,
and Handel intended it for the concert hall, not the
church. Its theatricality is another reason for its
popularity.
Handel also wrote Messiah in English, rather than
German or Italian, which appealed to the middle
class in England and Ireland, where the work first
appeared back in the mid-1700s. This also made
it easy to digest in the United States, and choral
societies quickly got on the Messiah bandwagon.
Musically, the score is a hodgepodge of styles,
including Italian (recitative), French (overture),
English (anthem), and German (fugal) influences.
Handel was, after all, a man of the world.
He also poured his soul into composing Messiah
at a difficult period in his life. Several of his Italian
operas at the time had been duds, costing him
enough to nearly be thrown into debtor’s prison.
So he did what any good composer would do: He
locked himself in a room and pouted awhile, then
began writing in a burst of white-hot inspiration.
Trance-like, he finished the score in a remarkable 24
days, going for long periods without food or sleep.
After completing the Hallelujah chorus, he wrote
that he “saw heaven before me and the great God
himself.” Evidence of this inspiration can be seen
on the facsimile of the original score: Notes become
increasingly large and spaced apart, as if written in
a fury.
The full score is a handful, to say the least. It
includes 53 sections spanning 2-1/2 hours. Many
productions cut it down, but keep the favorites,
such as Comfort Ye My People, For Unto Us A Child Is
Born, and the Hallelujah chorus. There are so many
favorites, in fact, that editing the work is more
challenging than performing it in full.
“Messiah provides a seemingly unending supply
of tunes that are elegant, charming, profoundly
moving, and just make you want to dance,’’ Karlin
said. “Particularly the choral fugues, like And He
Shall Purify and His Yoke is Easy.’’
This brings us to the business of standing during
that famous Hallelujah chorus, a tradition said to
have begun in 1743, when King George II rose from
his seat, enthralled by the beauty of the music. Not
wanting to offend the king, the audience also stood
– or so the story goes.
Scholars are divided on this story, and some
say it’s a myth. But if people want to stand
up and sing together, that’s a good thing, and
Handel no doubt would give his nod of approval.
Program notes © 2019 by Kurt Loft, a freelance writer
and former music critic for The Tampa Tribune.