March 2025
View Past Events

Program Notes | Handel’s Messiah

Handel’s Messiah
By Laurie Shulman ©2023

This information is provided solely as a service to and for the benefit of New Jersey Symphony subscribers and patrons. Any other use without express written permission is strictly forbidden.


Program

Nicholas McGegan conductor 
Sherezade Panthaki soprano
Key’mon W. Murrah countertenor
Thomas Cooley tenor
Tyler Duncan baritone
Montclair State University Singers | Heather J. Buchanan, director
New Jersey Symphony

Handel Messiah
    Part I

Intermission

    Part II
    Part III

George Friderich Handel: Messiah

Handel was a survivor. Time and again he reinvented himself, took advantage of current events to further his career and adapted his music to adjust to changing performance circumstances. After he shifted his focus away from Italian opera in favor of English language oratorios in the late 1730s, he found astounding variety in Biblical texts. In one major work after another – Saul, Israel in Egypt, Samson, Judas Maccabaeus, Belshazzar, Susanna – he zeroed in on the dramatic potential of Biblical stories. In the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha, he found characters and relationships as compelling as those of the gods and heroes who populated his opera libretti.

In fact there was not so much difference in the basic themes that Handel had addressed in his operas: death, wealth, beauty, love, contemplation of the devil, pursuit of a virtuous life and the preservation of one’s soul. Oratorio gave him free rein to pursue these ideas through the same musical vehicles of arias, duets, and choruses. He simply did so without costumes or staging. Most important, presenting his music in the English vernacular gave him the opportunity to expand his audience exponentially. Outside Italy, Italian opera was the province of the wealthy few. Sacred oratorio belonged to everyone and had the advantage of being performed in a language everyone spoke.

Handel also composed a substantial amount of English church music, including anthems and hymns, as well as some Latin liturgical settings. Among his choral works, he remains best loved for his oratorios, above all Messiah. Its global popularity has placed it in a league of familiarity occupied by only a few classical works. Messiah keeps company with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Ravel’s Boléro, and Copland’s Appalachian Spring. The fact that Handel and his librettist Charles Jennens succeeded in doing so with a sacred work adds to the unique qualities of this beloved oratorio.

Extended Notes and Artist Bios