By: Ben Costello
George Fredrick Handel’s oratorio, The Messiah is one of the most instantly recognizable and universally beloved pieces ever written. I’d like to provide a very brief reflection on why this piece is so enduringly popular. The Messiah is a piece both literally and figuratively tied to resurrection. First performed on Easter Sunday the piece always was intended primarily to be performed for Easter despite the fact that in contemporary society it is nearly always considered a Christmas piece, with scores of performances of the Hallelujah Chorus every December. In fact the piece is really about Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. It was also the piece which figuratively resurrected Handel’s career and cemented him as one of the greatest masters of composition every. The secret to the incredible power of the music lies not so much within its method of telling a story through sound: in fact, there is very little narrative or story in the music or text. Rather, Handel chose to create a piece which was essentially a long reflection on Jesus the Messiah. Thus all the Bible passages he employs give very little information about the actual life of Jesus. Handel’s music and text focuses mainly on emotional effect. Where other composers use a technique known as “word painting,” where they illustrate musically particular words, gestures, and phrases in the text their music accompanies, Handel essentially did not. This allowed him to combine text which he had personally selected (and which thus reveals his own feelings and emotions and thoughts about Jesus and his life) with music which captures the emotion behind the words. Where the text speaks of the weight of Adam’s sin which Jesus himself bears, the music is heavy and somber, but it does not try to match the exact words through word painting. Likewise the music which accompanies the largest section of text, the Resurrection-related passages, gives little expression to the nuances of the words, but instead abounds in joy, triumph and excitement. Handel’s music then is primarily an expression of the emotions underlying the text and the emotions that he himself felt. These are the emotions which have led to people becoming Christians after hearing the profound power of the piece. The endurance of The Messiah almost 300 years after it was written seems to stem not from the theological depths it probes, but from the pure display of emotion, writ expansively and clearly by Handel. The piece relies on the way in which Handel wrote immediately arresting music that captures the effect that Jesus’s life had and continues to have. Handel’s success at hinting at the life story of Jesus while reflecting on the effect of that story in music has not only cemented him as one of the greatest composers and The Messiah as one of the most popular pieces ever written, but has generated one of the most affecting and inspiring works for Christians and non-Christians alike.
George Fredrick Handel’s oratorio, The Messiah is one of the most instantly recognizable and universally beloved pieces ever written. I’d like to provide a very brief reflection on why this piece is so enduringly popular. The Messiah is a piece both literally and figuratively tied to resurrection. First performed on Easter Sunday the piece always was intended primarily to be performed for Easter despite the fact that in contemporary society it is nearly always considered a Christmas piece, with scores of performances of the Hallelujah Chorus every December. In fact the piece is really about Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. It was also the piece which figuratively resurrected Handel’s career and cemented him as one of the greatest masters of composition every. The secret to the incredible power of the music lies not so much within its method of telling a story through sound: in fact, there is very little narrative or story in the music or text. Rather, Handel chose to create a piece which was essentially a long reflection on Jesus the Messiah. Thus all the Bible passages he employs give very little information about the actual life of Jesus. Handel’s music and text focuses mainly on emotional effect. Where other composers use a technique known as “word painting,” where they illustrate musically particular words, gestures, and phrases in the text their music accompanies, Handel essentially did not. This allowed him to combine text which he had personally selected (and which thus reveals his own feelings and emotions and thoughts about Jesus and his life) with music which captures the emotion behind the words. Where the text speaks of the weight of Adam’s sin which Jesus himself bears, the music is heavy and somber, but it does not try to match the exact words through word painting. Likewise the music which accompanies the largest section of text, the Resurrection-related passages, gives little expression to the nuances of the words, but instead abounds in joy, triumph and excitement. Handel’s music then is primarily an expression of the emotions underlying the text and the emotions that he himself felt. These are the emotions which have led to people becoming Christians after hearing the profound power of the piece. The endurance of The Messiah almost 300 years after it was written seems to stem not from the theological depths it probes, but from the pure display of emotion, writ expansively and clearly by Handel. The piece relies on the way in which Handel wrote immediately arresting music that captures the effect that Jesus’s life had and continues to have. Handel’s success at hinting at the life story of Jesus while reflecting on the effect of that story in music has not only cemented him as one of the greatest composers and The Messiah as one of the most popular pieces ever written, but has generated one of the most affecting and inspiring works for Christians and non-Christians alike.
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