Why Handel’s Messiah never goes out of fashion
Santa’s right arm drew back, then delivered a powerful haymaker between Rudolph’s antlers. The festive pair, locked in sudden unseasonal animosity, tumbled onto the shiny, sleet-soaked sidewalk of East 33rd Street, close to Manhattan’s Greely Square Park. Moments before, they had been bell-ringing and “Ho-ho-ho-ing” for Christmas charity.
The casus belli, a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam Bourbon – since 1795 no less! – slipped from concealment under Santa’s black-straggled beard – and smashed in the gutter. New York passers-by parted, as a river round a rock, unconcerned.
Peace talks reached a rapid conclusion. Rocketman Reindeer and Dotard Santa clasped each other in mutual support, weaving unsteadily towards nearby Foley’s Irish Bar and Baseball Memorabilia Shrine, possibly in search of Mrs Claus.
Put me right in the mood, that did, for my own seasonal indulgence – a performance of Handel’s oratorio, Messiah. I was headed uptown, to Carnegie Hall, to listen to The Oratorio Society of New York perform probably the best-known George Frederic Handel work in the repertoire.
Messiah is a wonder. In 2020 it will play in all lands, in all venues. Ubiquitous. Concert Hall; Church Hall; Wigwam … er, maybe not. It is still ubiquitous, 250 years after its composer’s death. Woe to the community that fails to pull together a Christmas performance. Which is surprising, as the work has as much to do with Christmas as an April Easter egg.
Why should Easter 2020 be the next splurge of Messiah-fests? The focus is on the passion, death and resurrection of Christ – Easter. His birth – Christmas – is but an explanatory introduction in the opening choruses and arias, climaxing in the famous, Unto Us a Child is Born. Single-handedly, this chorus has rooted Messiah firmly in Christmas soil.
Why the work’s enduring popularity? Simply, Messiah is the greatest story ever told, voiced through some of the greatest music ever written. At the premiere in Dublin on 13th April rehearsal gossip drummed up an audience of 700. Management of the Musick Hall was obliged to issue a plea to ladies “not to wear hoops”, to cram in a bigger crowd.
Why Dublin? Handel had encountered problems mounting the work in London. It was too religious for the stage and too secular for churches. The oratorio form, with singers singing extracts from scripture, rather than representing biblical characters, was an attempt to circumvent the religious establishment’s obsession with banning sacred works – their province – from the seamy stage, exclusively – for blasphemers, inevitably en route to the fiery pit.
You can’t keep a good oratorio down. So, after the Dublin success, London’s Covent Garden theatre staged Messiah in 1743 as The New Sacred Oratorio, to avoid the use of the controversial appellation, Messiah. Using a name for God in a commercial context was as hotly disputed in Christian Regency London as representing the prophet Mohammed pictorially is in the Muslim world today.
And, boy was Handel commercial. While his contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach, confined himself to the cocoon of court and church employment, Handel roamed Europe. His lucrative “London” period lasted from 1710 until his death in 1749.
Handel’s output was prodigious, including 42 operas, 25 oratorios, more than 120 cantatas, trios, duets, numerous arias, chamber music, a large number of ecumenical works, odes and serenatas, 18 concerti grossi and 12 organ concertos. Phew!
Why, out of all these, does Handel’s Messiah endure in the public psyche, while much of the rest of his work – Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks aside – is the province of classical music aficionados only?
The work’s universality is why. In its fragmentary construction of choruses, arias, pastoral orchestra passages and continuos, lies the whole convolution of Christianity – true, faithful and poetic. Baroque painters represented the faith in frescoes. We gawp. Handel, in sound. We listen.
The high festivals of the church provided an opportunity for Handel to create a cyclical work embracing the essential mysteries of the Christian story. Messiah was a handy 17th century Google Map for the faithful.
In Part 1 the Messiah is announced, the Redemption and its mystery foretold – “Comfort ye my people, saith your God.” Part 2 takes us to the birth of the Christ Child. Unto Us a Child is Born is playful, rocking, childish even, based on part exchanges across the chorus until the enormity of the birth is realised when the ensemble comes together to sing the word “Wonderful”, rising fff on three descending notes, in a slowing tempo that raises hair on the back of the neck. The conductor sweeps his hand across orchestra and chorus, turning the dial to max. This is the Handel wow factor in full cry.
Part 3, Passion and Death is unusual, in that it does not dwell on graphic events, torments, crowning with thorns and crucifixion. Instead, it focuses on the internal sorrow of The Righteous One, “Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrows.” There is a disdain for shock. Penetrating analysis takes precedence.
The consequences emerge in Part 4, Resurrection and Eternal Life, but not in some detached, “nowt to do with me”, way. We just cannot ignore the down to earth, secular, admonition of “Why do the nations so furiously rage together?” It is as relevant today as it has been from biblical times. “Hallelujah!”, the iconic identifier of Messiah, and the “Amen” chorus send us on our way with a message of hope, but also a reminder of our responsibility for the consequences of our own actions.
The trick Messiah pulls off is that there is something for everyone, believer – Catholic or Protestant – non-believer, even the merely quizzical. It demands a truly tin ear to remain indifferent.
Messiahs come in many forms – from chamber works to full orchestral extravaganzas. I prefer the former, intimacy fostering warm engagement, which the pomposity of massed choirs, thundering orchestras, booming drums and blasting trumpets cannot. The all-important four narrator soloists, – tenor, bass, soprano and alto – are rapidly overwhelmed by too much grandeur, drowned in a flood of raucous sound. To have impact, their narration requires a softer setting.
My Oratorio Society of New York rendition was a text-book example of how NOT to perform Messiah and why showy, large scale productions rarely capture the sensitivity required to deliver the flckering changes of mood, this work’s genius.
First off, the pace was relentlessly frenetic – often a conductor’s attempt to pretend virtuosity, while glossing over a lack of skill. This is a work full of dramatic dynamics and tempo changes. There are moments of revelation that cry out for space, and more deliberate tempi. None of those here, thank you. Drive on!
The Oratorio chorus was not fit for purpose, enunciation so careless that when I closed my eyes – wincing often throughout the performance – it was really difficult to tell if they were singing in English. There is a lot of fashionable guff criticising the Church of England choral tradition of clear enunciation as pedantry. Call me old fashioned, but, making sure the congregation/audience can understand what is being sung seems a bit of a priority. Else, all is vacuous, meaningless noise.
So, when I heard “Li ….” Instead of “Light” and “Chri ….” Instead of “Christ”, from the chorus – two glaring examples of sloppiness only – I winced at the carelessness in rehearsal and lack of regard for listeners.
Orchestration. Gratuitous use of drums and trumpets is often an irresistible temptation, quickly becoming an intrusive bore. Plenty of both in this performance.
God knows where they found the trumpeter. Seemed a nice enough guy. Did his stuff quietly until he kicked off the introduction to the chorus, “The Trumpet Will Sound”. Then, as out of control as a Greely Square Santa, he did his best to hijack the rest of the evening. We were treated to a new, innovative part work, not of Handel’s creation – “The Trumpet Will Never Cease”. The chorus did its level best but was constantly overwhelmed by twiddly, gratuitous grace notes of our trumpeter’s own invention. He had morphed into the annoying Christmas toy that can’t be turned off.
No-one removed his Duracells, so I left disappointed, kicking cans down 57th Street and on the lookout for a seedy Santa to harangue. Two year ago, Apollo’s Fire, the Cleveland, Ohio ensemble and chorus, led by indomitable harpist Jeannette Sorrell, delivered a sublime Messiah in the Metropolitan Museum’s performance auditorium. That evening I stepped lightly down Fifth Avenue having had Messiah “balm for the soul” amply applied. What a contrast.
Closer to home, a fine exponent of Messiah is conductor Stephen Layton, whose 2009 recording with Polyphony and the Britten Sinfonia on the Hyperion label is a masterpiece of knowing interpretation. I admit prejudice, as Stephen was Director of Music at London’s Temple Church, where our two boys were choristers. I’ve been an avid follower of his intense performances, ever since I regularly listened to him during rehearsals, painstakingly dismantling and reassembling familiar church “pot boilers” to make them zing with meaning. His approach is fastidious.
At the birth of Messiah London’s musical world of the early 18th century was a cauldron of competitivity. Conventional Italian opera composer, Giovani Bononcini, battled with Handel for ratings. John Byrom, a contemporary poet, resolved the duel in Handel’s favour – sort of:
Some say compared to Bononcini,
That Mynheer Handel’s but a Ninny;
Others aver, that he to Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a Candle
As not many headed to hear Bononcini’s Messiah – if he ever wrote one – this Christmas, we can conclude Byrom had a point.
The mystery, that Handel, scribed his enduring work of genius in a mere four weeks on a blotted and much erased score, is almost as unfathomable as the biblical mysteries Messiah aims to illuminate.
That, in the right hands, it touches the soul of generation upon generation is indisputable – a powerful seasonal punch between the antlers.