Music is a process not an end.  As performers we’re in a way explorers, bringing new discoveries to our audience.  This is the elegant beauty of live performance – you don’t always know what’s coming!  But Messiah was composed 269 years ago and has been performed virtually non-stop since it premiered in April 1742… what could there possibly be left for us to discover?  And why does this work have so much staying power?

Handel composed Messiah in just three weeks in the summer 1741 for chorus, soloists and a string orchestra (he mentions no separate oboe parts in the manuscript) with trumpets and tympani reserved for four movements only.  Having said this, oboe parts began to appear in his score as early as 1743.  Handel performed this version of Messiah until his death in 1759.

Mozart left a mark on Messiah, too.  In 1789 he re-worked and re-orchestrated it at the request of his friend and patron Baron van Swieten, who translated Messiah into German for this edition and later compiled and edited the text to “Creation” for Haydn.  Mozart filled out the wind section with two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, plus two trumpets, two horns, three trombones and organ.  In addition, Mozart (probably with van Swieten’s help and “advice”) made some rather drastic cuts and re-allocated solos for different voices differently from what Handel originally intended and, in some cases, I believe he altered the structure of several movements.  Mozart’s take on Messiah is absolutely wonderful or, as the chorus exclaims in German in the chorus “For Unto us a Child is Born”… it’s “wunderbar!”   Definitely not pure Handel but it is fun.

Then along comes Sir Eugene Goosens.  In 1959 (200 years after Handel’s death), Sir Thomas Beecham commissioned Goosens to re-orchestrate Messiah again for a large modern symphony orchestra.  The genesis of this project is still a little murky with some claiming that Goosens did all the work while others say that Beecham did some or maybe all of it.  What is certain is that this is probably the largest-scale version of Messiah ever conceived!  Goosens’ version has the following players:

3 Flutes (piccolo), 4 Oboes (cor anglais),
2 Clarinets (bass clarinet), 2 Bassoons, 1 Contrabassoon;
4 Horns, 2 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, Tuba;
Timpani; 3 Percussion; Harp & Strings

This is a huge orchestra!  Members of the Annapolis Chorale performed this version at Carnegie Hall several years ago.  To me, this version of Messiah is more of a curiosity than a usable version that can be a resource year in and year out.  But again, it’s definitely worth a listen (at least once) if only to hear the percussion augmenting the “Hallelujah” chorus!

So, here we are in the early part of the 21st century getting ready to perform Messiah once again.  Where do we start and how do we avoid going down a wrong path as we try to honor Handel’s intentions for his Messiah, still loved and regularly performed for more than 250 years?

First, it’s important to realize that there is no version of Messiah that can be thought of as the “the final version authorized by the composer.”  Handel himself re-worked the piece each time he performed it based on the resources he had at his disposal – orchestra, chorus and, most importantly, soloists.  For each set of performances the “cast” changed, which might necessitate the composition of new versions of some arias.  Although most of the choral movements stayed pretty much the way we know them today, they sometimes changed, too.

How Messiah is performed has changed over the years as well.  As Clifford Bartlett says in the preface to his 1998 edition of the score (which includes all of the many versions of music that Handel composed for and used in Messiah):

“The way in which Messiah has been performed has changed enormously since Handel’s lifetime.  A writer earlier in this century might have used the word ‘progressed’ instead of ‘changed’.  Perhaps the development has been circular and we are now performing the work more in the manner which Handel expected than at any time since his death.  Some including the editor [Bartlett] would like to think so; but we will never know.”

So, with all these options on the table, how do we know what Handel wanted, and – I don’t mean to offend anyone in the early music world with this, but – does that matter?

The answer to the first part of the question is that we can’t know for sure what he wanted.  Answering the second part of the question is more difficult.  What Handel wanted does matter, but since we can’t know for sure, we have two choices:  don’t do the work or find another way to make sense of the material at hand.  As we explore the many versions of Messiah that Handel left us, it’s important to remember that when you change one piece, other things have to adjust so they fit into a cohesive whole.  This gives us an almost infinite set of possibilities.

A final question (at least for this blog) remains… with all of the ambiguity surrounding Messiah – so many versions, modern re-workings of the orchestra and even the structure of the work as a whole – why does it survive?  Actually, the word should be thrive!

The first part of the answer is that Handel’s music is brilliant and timeless.  I think that the second part of the answer is that, because unlike many other oratorios, Messiah is not a narrative.  The subject is obvious and the references clear, but with the exception of the “Christmas scene” in Part 1, there is no dialogue as in other oratorios.  Instead of a story where the end is already known, Messiah is a collection of scriptural texts that allow us to reflect on the subject at hand and draw our own conclusions about their meaning.   Listeners come to the piece in their own way and reflect on their personal faith and belief.  It’s this unique combination of text and music that enables the performer and listener to meet on common ground and, for a moment, take time away from the “real world” to think about something far more sublime and important.

In the end it is perhaps live performance and it’s infinite possibilities that has kept Messiah in our collective hearts and minds.  This year, as you listen to Messiah, I hope you’ll discover something new and, at the same time find that one bit of music and text that connects you to its message of hope and redemption.

To see previous blogs from Ernie – click here.

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