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organ and led the chorus in the music that had opened Heaven to his spirit ual sight. Critics said following this performance that he had never been more magnificent in the possession of his mature and brilliant technique. Never had he brought such emotional splendor from the organ. After it was over, he collapsed and was taken to his house in Brooke Street. Not on Good Friday as he had hoped, but the following day he died. The composition of the “Messiah” had been the turning point in his life and had brought to him his most enduring fame. Perhaps no other musical composi tion has a greater or more significant message for our time. One feels a peculiar fitness in the rolling quavers of the bass aria, “Thus saith the Lord, I will shake all nations,” in view of the shaking now taking place. There is an unearthly majesty in the sudden outburst of praise to the One whose Kingdom shall never end: “Wonder ful! Counsellor! The mighty God! The everlasting Father! The Prince of Peace!” And the quiet promise of comfort and pastoral peace breaks upon the longing heart with incon ceivable beauty: “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd.” As long as the “Messiah” is sung, men will hear in matchless music the very heart of the Christian mes sage. And eventually the “ gross dark ness,” will give way to a “ great light.” By J . W es ley Ingles (Rev. Ingles is a Baptist pastor and teach er. He is author of a number of books including "The Silver Trumpet.")
gentlemen to come without swords. In this way an additional one hun dred persons were accommodated, though hundreds waited vainly in the streets. The Dublin Gazette published, and reporters carried to London, stories of the success of this new work by Han del. It was nevertheless with no great anticipation that the perfumed George II, surrounded by his powdered and pampered court, attended the first London performance. But when voices and instruments burst into the great “Hallelujah,” the indifferent mon arch, and with him the whole audi ence, rose in an uncontrollable and unpremeditated tribute to the power of the grand chorus, a tribute quite different from the now traditional, and often formal gesture of respect at this point in the oratorio. The original productions had none of the sensational characteristics of mass music on the grand scale so often associated with its rendition in later years. An old print shows Han del among his musicians with a total force, vocal and instrumental, of forty-three, a far cry from the thou sands of voices rising in tumultuous rhythms in the Crystal Palace during a nineteenth century Handel Festival. The first American performance was given in January of 1770, when sixteen numbers from the score were rendered at a concert sponsored by Mr. William Tuckey, clerk of Trin ity Church in New York. Probably only a harpsichord was used for ac companiment. But it was not long until America was rivaling England in the size and number of choirs ren dering the famous work. Oratorio societies began to spring up in almost every city, and the an nual production of the “Messiah” be came the chief event in their season. In 1911 it was rendered in German by the A Capella Choir of Milwaukee to the largest audience ever assembled in that city for a musical event, music lovers coming from a radius of a hun dred miles to hear the oratorio trans lated back into the native language of the composer. Given originally to free debtors in prison, repeatedly for the Foundlings Hospital in Lon don, and finally donated to them at his death, it exemplifies the very es sence of Christmas in the Christian charity of its service. Even when blindness came upon Handel during his closing years, he sat at the organ for its performance to the very end. In April, 1759, a week before his death, he played the
o r almost two centuries, British and American choirs have been singing Handel’s “Hallelujah,” the world’s most famous chorus from the world’s most famous oratorio. During the Christmas season, with which it has become inseparably connected, al though it was originally performed at Easter time, its triumphant paean is heard over all the land in church es, in concert halls, and over the radio. Attendance at a yuletide performance of the “Messiah” by Handel has be come for many a religious rite, an nually repeated, which illuminates for them the central meaning of the Christmas event. Perhaps no other musical composi tion has had a more interesting origin and history, and certainly no other has earned so much in the cause of charity. Like most of the great works of art, it grew out of the crushed soul of the artist. In 1737, Georg Friedrich Handel was completely ruined. His ventures in opera production in Lon don had not only swept away his savings of £10,000, but had incurred a debt of almost that amount. In addi tion to financial distress, he suffered an attack of paralysis, which was later cured, however, at the waters of Aix- la-Chapelle. In vain he struggled for four years to recoup his losses, hound ed by creditors, afflicted with gout, and threatened with blindness. The fickle public had tinned from his operas to those of his Italian rivals. Just as Scott, forced by Byron’s suc cess in narrative poetry, turned to the novel and found in that medium his real strength, so Handel turned to the oratorio and in the development of this form achieved his true destiny. For twenty-four days Handel trod the heights. He was deeply moved during its composition. Once his serv ant found him at his desk with tears streaming down his cheeks after he had been working on the aria, “He was despised and rejected of men.” And concerning the composition of the “Hallelujah” chorus, H a n d e l claimed, “ I did think I did see all Heaven before me and the great God Himself.” And those who first heard it were moved by it. It was for the benefit of men imprisoned for debt that the world premiere of the “Messiah” was given. The oratorio was first produced in Dublin on April 13, 1742. The new Musick Hall in Fishamble Street was crowded. Seven hundred seats sold at a guinea each, a price seldom equaled for a musical event. The ladies were requested not to wear hoops, and the DECEMBER, 1958
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