by FW
The first performance of “Messiah”, an oratorio by George Frideric Handel, took place in Dublin in 1742. Since that initial presentation, this work, which has become Handel’s most enduringly famous, has undergone many variations and adjustments in the score beginning with those from the composer himself. For Handel they were largely matters of practicality, adapting to the available musical forces at hand. For that reason there is no absolutely definitive performance score, although a definite structure had become settled in the last years of his life.
An exploration of performance practices in all the time since makes for an interesting study. Many musicians of later generations, even up to the late 1950’s, have sought to “improve” its compositional texture to reflect the tastes of their own time. The first major updated arrangement of the oratorio, made within fifty years of its composition, was undertaken by no less than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His work did not for the greater part remove Handel’s original notation, it added to it. In so doing he created a much more “contemporary” sound of the classical period in Vienna to minimize what had become a somewhat old-fashioned Baroque compositional style. To be sure, it remains Handel, but with Mozart’s voice.
This musical renovation, created by Mozart in 1789 at the suggestion of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, a music loving court official, included the addition of wind instruments (paired flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassons and trombones) to augment Handel’s basic string orchestration. It gives a fuller, deeper, even darker sonority to the work. These adjustments will be obvious to those familiar with Handel’s scoring. Although always respecting Handel’s original compositional style, Mozart not only adds instruments but also includes his own musical harmonic thoughts, filling out places which Handel kept silent as well as making occasional cuts and abridgments.
These Mozart- arranged and conducted performances, three in all, were sung to a German text with a chorus of 12-16. It was clearly intended to be a chamber-sized performance and given for a private audience.
While not entirely forgotten, it then disappeared from use. The autograph score and instrumental parts did not surface until the mid 1950’s and were not published until 1961. Even so, it is rarely performed today, given the revitalization of authentic Baroque performance practice as heard in Handel’s own time. While there are no end to “Messiah” recordings, there are at most a half dozen of the Mozart version — and they vary from each other as well!
The Mozart arrangement of “Messiah” was last given in Columbus about forty years ago and so the upcoming presentation by the CSO, although not the complete work, offers a true not-to-be-missed opportunity to hear a well-known work in a different guise by another indisputably musical genius of a later generation.
While “Messiah” is far and away Handel’s best known oratorio — he wrote about thirty and they are all worth a listen — it is unique amongst the others. The rest concern Old Testament personages and are dramatic and poetic retellings of Biblical narratives. Apart from “Israel in Egypt”, “Messiah” is the only oratorio with an exclusively Scriptural text. This astute compilation, in no small measure responsible for its success, is the inspired work of collaborator Charles Jennens who himself acknowledged the unique character of the subject. His text selection inspired Handel’s own creative muse to a significant degree.
“Messiah” tells the story of human redemption in Christ Jesus in an abstract but always powerful way. The enthusiastic review of the first Dublin performance whose judgement has been affirmed ever since, makes its impact clear: “Words are wanting to express the exquisite delight it afforded … the sublime, the grand and the tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestic music, conspired to transport and charm the ravished heart and ear’.
This approbation points to another unique aspect of Handel’s intent for the effect of this “Sacred Oratorio” (as it was advertised for the first London performances). Londoners considered it to be objectionable, as a sacrilege to the sacred, an “entertainment”. It is indeed an entertainment in that what is heard gives satisfaction, pleasure and enjoyment. But Handel intended it to be more. When complimented on the quality entertainment he provided, Handel responded that he intended it be to more than that. He said, “I wished to make them (ie. those who heard it) better”.
This combination of text and music, here by Handel and Mozart, not only entertains, it edifies. We recognize that it has to do with us. Perhaps that is a major reason why “Messiah” remains timeless in its 283rd year.
by FW
