You know it as the work performed each December around the world. You know it for its countless reinterpretations, singalong performances, and even Gospel versions. You know it for its exalted “Hallelujah Chorus.”
But what you might not know is that, despite a promising debut, Handel’s Messiah was far from an unmitigated success at the outset. In fact, the work garnered controversy and created professional strife for the composer! So how did this landmark oratorio gain the popularity it has come to enjoy?
The Advent of a New Musical Genre
Today, we are so familiar with George Frideric Handel’s (1685–1759) Messiah that it is easy to forget how revolutionary it was at the time of composition. Handel was born in Germany, trained in Italy, and spent most of his professional life in London. He synthesized the musical styles of these places—namely, Italian opera seria, German Passion oratorios, and English masques and choral anthems—to create a new genre of music: the English oratorio.
George Frideric Handel
This innovation did not appear overnight. For 30 years, Handel had focused his energies on bringing Italian opera to London. However, as the popularity of Italian opera waned and he faced competition from warring operatic establishments, Handel was forced to pivot. Little did he know the series of oratorios he produced in the last 20 years of his life—Messiah chief among them—would become his enduring legacy.
Handel composed what is considered his first English oratorio, Esther, in 1718. However, it was not performed publicly until 1732. The work’s Biblical subject matter would have made staging it illegal, so it was presented in concert instead. Over the next decade, Handel increasingly turned his focus from operas to sacred oratorios and secular music dramas, which were proving more commercially viable.
Creating Messiah
In November 1741, Handel, disillusioned by another lackluster opera season, traveled to Dublin to prepare a series of charity concerts at the brand-new venue Neale’s Musick Hall. Packed with him were the scores for proven hits, including the oratorios Acis and Galatea, Esther, Saul, L’Allegro, and Alexander’s Feast, as well as the beginnings of a new sacred oratorio.
The first run of concerts in February 1742 was so successful that another concert series was mounted a week later. Even still, the Irish public had not yet had their fill of Handel’s music. So, over the course of just three weeks, Handel rushed finished the score to Messiah for performance shortly after Easter.
Messiah premiered on April 13, 1742, for the benefit of three local charities. The open dress rehearsal a few days prior had set the city abuzz. In anticipation of large crowds, attendees were advised to leave their swords and hoop skirts at home to accommodate as many people as possible. Reviews in the papers were universally glowing, calling Handel’s oratorio “sublime,” “grand,” and “tender.” The success of Messiah prolonged Handel’s stay in Dublin through the summer for more concerts, including a reprise of Messiah on June 3.
Initial Controversies
Despite Messiah’s rousing success in Dublin, Handel was still wary of how the oratorio would be received among the more discerning audiences in London. Of particular concern was the fact that unlike other sacred oratorios—which were merely based on Biblical stories and contained characters and a narrator—Messiah’s text was taken directly and exclusively from Scripture and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Because of the sacred text, some believed it sacrilegious to perform the work in a theater.
The librettist who compiled these texts, Charles Jennens, was similarly concerned. He was never entirely pleased with Messiah, thinking Handel composed it too hastily and was too stubborn to make requested edits. Jennens even wrote in 1743, “I shall put no more Sacred Words into his hands, to be thus abus’d.”
A performance at Covent Garden, 1786
Handel entered into an agreement to present oratorios at Covent Garden on Wednesdays and Fridays during the 1743 Lenten season (when performing opera was prohibited). Advertisements for Messiah listed it as simply “A New Sacred Oratorio,” as Handel hoped that leaving out the title would shield it from criticism. Unfortunately, detractors still wrote to the papers, calling it inappropriate for an “Act of Religion” to be performed in a “Playhouse” and for secular musicians to be “Ministers of God’s Word.” Nonetheless, four performances of Messiah were planned, starting March 23. However, the piece was met with indifference, causing Handel to cancel the last concert and replace it with a repeat of his more popular oratorio, Samson.
Handel revived Messiah during Holy Week of 1745 to close his oratorio subscription season. He had made some amendments at Jennens’s request; their relationship was now on better footing. For instance, Handel reworked the soprano aria “Rejoice Greatly” to be in common time to reduce the number of movements in compound time in Part I. The performances passed without controversy, likely because audiences were more interested in his latest oratorio, Belshazzar.
Only in 1750 did Messiah start to claw back some of its initial reputation. Handel had become associated with the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children, or Foundling Hospital, having given a charity concert there the year before. To inaugurate the organ Handel donated to their new chapel, Handel mounted a performance of Messiah on May 1, 1750. Performing the work in the sacred setting of the hospital’s chapel and donating the proceeds to charity seemed to temper audiences’ previous misgivings. The event attracted such a large crowd that people were turned away at the door, and a repeat performance was scheduled two weeks later.
Handel performed Messiah again at the Foundling Hospital the following year in two well-received performances shortly after Easter. It soon became an annual tradition for him to conclude the Lenten oratorio season at Covent Garden with Messiah, followed by a repeat performance in May at the Foundling Hospital. These annual performances continued, even after Handel’s death, until the mid-1770s.
Enduring Classic
Program from a December 30, 1860 performance of Handel's Messiah by the legendary Handel and Haydn. Society
By the end of Handel’s life in 1759, he had given 36 performances of what was now his most popular work, and many more had been mounted across Ireland and Great Britain without his direct involvement. The publication of the score in 1767 hastened its dissemination. In 1784, to commemorate Handel’s impending centenary, two performances of Messiah were given at Westminster Abbey, where he is buried. Involving a staggering 500 musicians, the commemorative performance set the tone for how Messiah would come to be treated in the 19th century—as a festival piece for massed amateur choirs, sometimes with upwards of 1,000 singers and expanded orchestras.
Although it is liturgically more apt to perform the work around Easter, choral societies began programming Messiah at Christmastime instead, particularly in the United States. The reason behind this is largely financial, as audiences are more often looking for musical diversions during the festive season than at Easter and look to the familiar for a dose of nostalgia. Sometimes, performances are given of just the Christmas portion (Part I), ending with the obligatory “Hallelujah Chorus” from Part II.
Despite the initial controversy surrounding Handel’s Messiah, audiences could not deny the piece’s enduring hopeful message and glorious music for long. Through various permutations, from massive festival performances to historically informed renderings on period instruments, Messiah has stood the test of time to become the cherished annual tradition it is today.
Despite the initial controversy surrounding Handel’s Messiah, audiences could not deny the piece’s enduring hopeful message and glorious music for long. Through various permutations, from massive festival performances to historically informed renderings on period instruments, Messiah has stood the test of time to become the cherished annual tradition it is today.
