George Frideric Handel

by Herbert F. Peyser

Still, by the spring of 1741, Handel in a moment of profoundest disheartenment prepared to throw up the sponge and leave for good and all his home for the past thirty years. At long last he was fed up on the struggle and announced one last concert for April 8, 1741. And then, when the darkness before dawn seemed blackest, he sat down to create his masterpiece, the most universally beloved choral work ever composed!

That summer Charles Jennens gave Handel a compilation of Scriptural texts which he called “Messiah.” Jennens was a literary amateur, born at Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. Rich and bizarre, he was vastly conceited and especially proud of the manner in which he had assembled the various Biblical texts used in this case. Handel had been associated with him before—in the oratorio, “Saul” (1739), and in “L’Allegro ed Il Penseroso” a year later, as a supplement to which he had added some poor verses of his own to the lines of Milton and called the product “Il Moderato.” Robert Manson Myers thinks it “extraordinary that Handel turned to this eccentric millionaire for his libretto of ‘Messiah’.” Jennens was of another mind and even later wrote to an acquaintance: “I shall show you a collection I gave Handel, called ‘Messiah’ which I value highly; he has made a fine entertainment of it, though not near so good as he might and ought to have done.... There are some passages far unworthy of Handel, but even more unworthy of ‘Messiah’”; and deploring Handel’s “maggots” he added that he had “with greatest difficulty made him correct some of the grossest faults in the composition.” Doubtless Handel, had he so chosen, could have picked his texts himself; he compiled the book of “Israel in Egypt” unaided in 1738 and when, a good deal earlier, the Bishop of London wanted to help him with the words for the “Coronation Anthems” he retorted: “I have read my Bible very well, and I shall choose for myself!” Mr. Myers, in his encyclopedic study of “Messiah” feels certain that Handel must have controlled the choice of passages selected.

Like Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and other supreme musicians Handel could create with a rapidity which ignominiously shames composers of our supposedly “speedy” age. Even bearing that fact in mind, the composition of “Messiah” between Saturday, August 22, 1741, and Monday, September 14, following remains one of the miracles of music. Shut up in a little room on the first floor of his home on Lower Brook Street, Hanover Square, none can say exactly what went on. Handel is supposed to have uttered afterwards the words of St. Paul: “Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not.” Nobody seems to have dared intrude upon this mystic concentration. Food was left near him but usually found untouched when the servant came to remove it. He sat at his desk like a stone figure and stared into space. Sometimes his man stood in awe to see his master’s tears drop on the music paper and mingle with the ink. “When he was composing ‘He was despised’ a visitor is reported to have found the trembling composer sobbing with intense emotion.” And after the “Hallelujah Chorus” he uttered those historic words: “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself!” The autograph score, with its blots, its angry erasures and general untidiness, offers fierce evidence of his tumultuous feelings and flaming ecstasies. Possibly between April and late August of 1741 he was shut up in his four walls planning the work, for we have no clear idea just what he did during this period. Sketches and fragments do not clear up what mystery there may be, for the composer destroyed all but some fugitive scraps.

Handel appears to have “been reluctant to submit such music to the capricious taste of aristocratic London.” So when William Cavendish, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, invited him to visit Dublin and permit the public of “that generous and polite Nation” hear his oratorios Handel assented at once, the more so because it was a question of assisting three benevolent institutions of Ireland (one of them the Charitable Musical Society for the Relief of Imprisoned Debtors). With his usual impulsiveness he even agreed to present “some special oratorio” solely for the benefit of the unfortunates jailed for debt. And he was happy to shake the dust of London from his feet for a while. Before starting on his Irish journey, incidentally, he composed in a fortnight part of another oratorio, “Samson”, based on Milton’s “Samson Agonistes” and containing that noble air of lament, “Total Eclipse”, which was to affect him so poignantly some years later. For his Dublin productions he had two exceptional woman singers—Susannah Maria Cibber (also an illustrious tragic actress) and Signora Avolio, a highly trained Italian. The chorus was recruited from Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Christchurch.

“Messiah” did not receive its first hearing till April 13, 1742. Reports emanating from the last rehearsals greatly whetted public appetite and on the morning of April 13 Faulkner’s Journal ran the following: “This day will be performed Mr. Handell’s new Grand Sacred Oratorio, called the Messiah. The doors will be opened at Eleven, and the performance begin at Twelve. The Stewards of the Charitable Musical Society request the favor of the ladies not to come with hoops this day to the Musick Hall in Fishamble Street. The Gentlemen are desired to come without their swords.” Mr. Myers relates that “Handel’s ‘polite’ audience comprised ‘Bishops, Deans, Heads of the Colledge, the most eminent People in the Law, as well as the Flower of Ladyes of Distinction and other People of the greatest quality.’” The audience was transported. In some ways the heroine of the occasion was Mrs. Cibber, who sang the air “He was despised” with such tenderness and pathos that the Reverend Patrick Delany, who had harbored a bitter prejudice against actresses and singers so far forgot himself that he rose and solemnly exclaimed: “Woman, for this be all thy sins forgiven thee!”

It was late in August, 1742, before Handel returned to London. The hostility of the English aristocracy was still strong and continued for some years, although the forceful voice of Alexander Pope had been raised in his favor, little as that poet is said to have known about music. But Pope’s acknowledged belief in Handel’s “talent” did something toward disarming the composer’s enemies. However, he was in no hurry to let London hear “Messiah” in spite of all the great things spoken and written about it. Not till February, 1743, did Handel plunge once more into the eddies of music-making in the metropolis—not, indeed, with operatic schemes as of old but with a plan for a series of subscription concerts at Covent Garden, offering “Samson” as the first attraction.

He took his time before bringing forward “Messiah”. Even before he could advertise it his hypocritical foes in fashionable circles began a campaign against the “profanation” and the “pious” raised loud cries; clergymen in particular were scandalized “at the sacrilege of converting the Life and Passion of Christ into a theatrical entertainment.” Even the idea of printing the word Messiah on a program led Handel to the expedient of announcing his great work simply as “A Sacred Oratorio.” At that, the embattled clerics tried to enjoin the performance “on the ground that Covent Garden Theatre was a place of worldly amusement and that in any case public entertainments during Lent were sacrilegious.” However, the “Sacred Oratorio” was at last given its first London hearing on March 23, 1743. The composer conducted, Signora Avolio, Mrs. Cibber, John Beard and Thomas Lowe were the chief soloists. And here let us cite once more Robert Manson Myers’ superb study of the masterpiece:

“As the glorious strains of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ burst upon the awed assemblage, thick-witted George II found himself so deeply affected by Handel’s music (or so eager to shift his position) that he started to his feet with all the spontaneous verve a sixty-year-old gout-ridden monarch could muster. Instantly his phlegmatic courtiers also rose, and since no Englishman may remain seated while his King is standing, the audience at once followed suit, thus inaugurating a custom which persists to the present day. Actually the King’s gesture was more a tribute to Handel’s impressive music than an instance of exceptional religious devotion....

“It is a curious indication of public taste that this casual Eighteenth Century ‘fashion’ has remained for two centuries an inviolable tradition both in England and in America. Even today thousands who can scarcely distinguish F sharp from middle C punctiliously observe a custom established by a stupid Hanoverian king and his worldly court two hundred years ago.”

Thanks to bigotry and organized religiosity, however, “Messiah” had only three performances in 1743, none in 1744, two in 1745 and none whatever till four years later. Newman Flower recounts that the master, being complimented on the work by a titled hearer, replied: “My lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained people; I wished to make them better.” Yet as late as 1756 a Miss Catherine Talbot, one of Handel’s most devoted admirers, could say that “the playhouse is an unfit place for such a solemn performance.” However, in the words of Robert Manson Myers, “England’s early rejection of ‘Messiah’ may be ascribed as much to personal resentment as to shallow musical taste.... Handel flaunted his independence and moved with resolute determination, snapping his fingers in the face of princely patrons and daring to defy the bluest blood in England. What was to be done with this insufferable German upstart, this mere musician, who despite persistent opposition succeeded in discharging his debts to the uttermost farthing? Chosen leaders of British ‘quality’ resolved to crush Handel at once. They devised a systematic campaign to boycott his oratorios, and no scheme proved too petty for the gratification of their spite.”