Sacred Oratorio by G.F. Handel
The words selected from Holy Scripture by Charles Jennens
And without Controversy, great is the mystery of Godliness: God was manifested in the Flesh, justified by the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory.
In whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge.
PART THE FIRST
Prophecy of Christ’s appearance
on earth; the nativity.
Sinfony
Comfort ye
Ev’ry valley
And the glory of the Lord
Thus saith the Lord
But who may abide
And He shall purify
Behold, a virgin shall conceive
O thou that tellest
For behold, darkness
The people that walked in darkness
For unto us a child is born
Pifa (Pastoral Symphony)
There were shepherds abiding in the field
And lo, the angel of the Lord
And the angel said unto them
And suddenly there was with the angel
Glory to God
Rejoice greatly
Then shall the eyes of the blind
He shall feed His flock
His yoke is easy
Interval 20’
MAJORA CANAMUS
‘Let us sing of greater things’
– Virgil, Eclogue IV
PART THE SECOND
The death, resurrection and
ascension of Christ; the spreading
of the Gospel.
Behold the Lamb of God
He was despised
Surely He hath borne our griefs
And with His stripes we are healed
All we, like sheep
All they that see Him
He trusted in God
Thy rebuke hath broken His heart
Behold and see
He was cut off
But Thou didst not leave
Lift up your heads
Unto which of the angels
Let all the angels of God
Thou art gone up on high
The Lord gave the word
How beautiful are the feet
Their sound is gone out
Why do the nations
Let us break their bonds
He that dwelleth in heaven
Thou shalt break them
Hallelujah
PART THE THIRD
Victory over Death.
I know that my Redeemer liveth
Since by man came death
Behold, I tell you a mystery
The trumpet shall sound
Then shall be brought to pass
O death, where is thy sting?
But thanks be to God
If God be for us
Worthy is the Lamb
Amen
There will be a short pause between Parts II and III, during which patrons are asked to remain in the Hall.
Messiah: part the first
Prophecy of Christ’s appearance on earth; the nativity.
Sinfony
As in his operas, Handel typically began his oratorios with an instrumental overture. Here the first part is marked ‘grave’ and its constant pattern of dotted rhythms coils up energy which is released in the faster second section, which nevertheless keeps an air of eagerness: an austerity which looks forward to the celebration to come.
Comfort ye (Isaiah 40:1–3)
Accompagnato: Tenor
Ev’ry valley (Isaiah 40:4)
Song: Tenor
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God;
speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her,
that her warfare is accomplish’d,
that her iniquity is pardon’d.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,
prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Ev’ry valley shall be exalted,
and ev’ry mountain and hill made low,
the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.
The music suddenly switches to the major key for these words of poignant hope. The first words of Messiah are a message of comfort and encouragement: the prophet Isaiah (around 760–690 BCE) was speaking to people who had been brutally defeated by invading forces and endured a long period of humiliation and hardship. Centuries later, John the Baptist would identify himself as that ‘voice crying in the wilderness’, exhorting people to be ready for the coming of Christ, the Messiah (the two words mean the same thing).
The accompanied recitative ‘Comfort ye’ begins gently but radiantly and ends with a trumpet-like call to attention; in the aria ‘Ev’ry valley’, the rugged mountains and valleys are drawn in sound by the rising and falling of the melody.
And the glory of the Lord (Isaiah 40:5)
Chorus
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together;
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Just as in Isaiah’s vision ‘all flesh’ shall see the glory of God, Handel now introduces the full chorus to exclaim at the wonder to come. Each phrase of the text is set to a distinctive melodic phrase, and these motifs are passed from voice to voice to weave a joyous dance pulsing with anticipation.
Thus saith the Lord (Haggai 2:6–7; Malachi 3:1)
Accompagnato: Bass
Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts;
Yet once a little while,
and I will shake the heav’ns and the earth;
the sea and the dry land;
And I will shake all nations;
and the desire of all nations shall come.
The Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple,
even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in:
behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts.
The mood now changes abruptly as the bass soloist announces the cataclysmic time of judgment that will accompany the appearance of God at the head of armies of angels. The fast-moving vocal line captures the terror of that day when all creation will be shaken.
But who may abide (Malachi 3:2)
Song: Bass
But who may abide the day of His coming?
and who shall stand when He appeareth?
For He is like a refiner’s fire.
The Old Testament prophets were unanimous in proclaiming God’s insistence that his people behave in accordance with his law: exercising justice, caring for the vulnerable, speaking the truth and worshipping only him. The coming of God was often imagined as a terrible fire which would burn away the dross of disobedience as gold is purified in a furnace.
In this aria, the prophet’s solemn question is answered with violent string playing and scales descending to the depths: the same kinds of musical materials Handel used in his operas to express raging fury.
And He shall purify (Malachi 3:3)
Chorus
And He shall purify the sons of Levi,
that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.
Traditionally, the ‘sons of Levi’ had a special ministry to serve in the temple worship, and Jewish law prescribed special standards of ritual cleanliness for those who approached the holy places.
Handel borrowed the music for this chorus from a secular duet he had written a month or so earlier (to the Italian words L’occaso ha nell’aurora – [life is a flower which] is born with the dawn and loses its springtime in a single day) and Handel preserves the clarity of his original chamber music version in this setting for full chorus. The notion of purity is particularly well conveyed by the transparent opening line from the sopranos.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23)
Recitative: Alto
O thou that tellest (Isaiah 40:9 and 60:1)
Song: Alto and Chorus
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall call His name Emmanuel,
‘God with us.’
O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion,
get thee up into the high mountain;
O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem,
lift up thy voice with strength;
lift it up, be not afraid,
say unto the cities of Judah,
Behold your God.
O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion,
arise, shine, for thy light is come,
and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
Jennens now turns to specific prophecies of the birth of Christ. Isaiah’s vision of a virgin giving birth is quoted by St Matthew, who identifies the infant Jesus as God-with-us. After the severity of the judgment, Handel returns to a major key – as he did for ‘Comfort ye’ back at the beginning – for this simple but tender recitative.
The aria and chorus that follow, ‘O thou that tellest’, have a lilting, dancelike feel, and Handel makes use of the rising interval of a fourth (especially in the phrase ‘lift up thy voice with strength’) to emphasise the sense of growing excitement.
For behold, darkness (Isaiah 60:2–3)
Accompagnato: Bass
The people that walked in darkness (Isaiah 9:2)
Song: Bass
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
and gross darkness the people:
but the Lord shall arise upon thee,
and His glory shall be seen upon thee.
And the Gentiles shall come to thy light,
and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light;
and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death,
upon them hath the light shined.
In ‘O thou that tellest’, the glory of God was described as a sun rising into the heavens – ‘arise, shine, for thy light is come’. Here the prophet takes the metaphor a step further and describes the misery and confusion of humankind as a ‘gross darkness’ through which God’s glory will shine out like a beacon.
Pulsing string accompaniments in the recitative convey a sense of yearning; in the aria, Handel turns the pulsing rhythm into a hauntingly chromatic unison melodic line which perfectly conveys the notion of humankind wandering blindly in the dark.
For unto us a child is born (Isaiah 9:6)
Chorus
For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon His shoulder;
and His name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor,
The Mighty God,
The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace.
Again Handel turns to one of his Italian chamber duets for this buoyant and graceful chorus. Out of the light two-part writing which begins the chorus, Handel builds the voices together into the exultant affirmation at ‘Wonderful, Counsellor...’
Pifa (Pastoral Symphony)
In creating his libretto, Jennens had carefully chosen and arranged scriptural texts not to recount a story, but to shed light on its profound significance. This instrumental interlude, however, takes us immediately to the side of the shepherds outside Bethlehem. The lilting siciliana rhythm and bagpipe-like drone were (and to an extent still are) standard symbols of pastoral music: Handel’s audience would have been surprised not to have heard them at any mention of shepherds.
There were shepherds abiding in the field (Luke 2:8)
Recitative: Soprano
And lo, the angel of the Lord (Luke 2:9)
Accompagnato: Soprano
And the angel said unto them (Luke 2:10–11)
Recitative: Soprano
And suddenly, there was with the angel (Luke 2:13)
Accompagnato: Soprano
Glory to God (Luke 2:14)
Chorus
There were shepherds abiding in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night.
And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them,
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them,
and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them,
Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day, in the city of David,
a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And suddenly there was with the angel
a multitude of the heav’nly host,
praising God, and saying...
‘Glory to God in the highest,
and peace on earth,
goodwill towards men.
These verses from the gospel according to Luke are the only direct piece of narrative in all of Messiah. But while the story is familiar, it here represents more than a mere Nativity scene: Jennens has again chosen his texts carefully to emphasise the heavenly authority of Christ, prophesied by Old Testament seers and now proclaimed by angels.
Handel could not resist, however, painting some practical details of the scene in his music: the energetic strings in ‘And suddenly...’ have been described as the beating of angels’ wings, and at the end of the chorus we hear the angels disappearing back into the heavens as the strings thin out
and fade away.
Rejoice greatly (Zechariah 9:9–10)
Song: Soprano
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem;
behold thy King cometh unto thee.
He is the righteous Saviour;
And He shall speak peace unto the heathen.
The focus now turns to the redemption and healing to be brought by the Saviour. The jubilant, almost merry music of the opening and the glad triumphant ‘shouts’ at the end complement the long, still notes on ‘peace’ in the more reflective middle section.
Then shall the eyes of the blind (Isaiah 35:5–6)
Recitative: Alto
He shall feed His flock (Isaiah 40:11; Matthew 11:28–29)
Duet: Alto and Soprano
Then shall the eyes of the blind be open’d,
And the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap as a hart,
and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.
He shall feed His flock like a shepherd:
and He shall gather the lambs with His arm,
and carry them in His bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
Come unto Him all ye that labour,
come unto Him, that are heavy laden,
and He will give you rest.
Take His yoke upon you, and learn of Him;
for He is meek and lowly of heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
The song ‘He shall feed his flock’ seems to be based on an Italian Christmas song that Handel would have heard sung by shepherds during his visit to Italy as a young man. Like the Pifa, it is in a gently rocking
siciliana rhythm that perfectly captures the tenderness of the words.
Jennens has taken Christ’s words from St Matthew’s gospel and put them in the third person (‘Come unto him’ rather than ‘Come unto me’: to have had a mortal singing the words of Christ would have been seen as highly blasphemous in Handel’s Britain.)
His yoke is easy (Matthew 11:30)
Chorus
His yoke is easy, His burthen is light.
This chorus is one of the supreme ironies of choral music: in direct contradiction of the words, Handel produced music which is fiendishly difficult to perform, with a light skipping figure in the main theme that
requires immense vocal control.
Messiah: part the second
The death, resurrection and ascension of Christ; the spreading of the Gospel.
Behold the Lamb of God (John 1:29)Chorus
Behold the Lamb of God,
that taketh away the sin of the world.
Jennens now concentrates on the importance of Christ’s physical suffering for the redemption of humankind. The words of this chorus were spoken by John the Baptist, the ‘voice in the wilderness’ mentioned in Part I.
Slow dotted rhythms like these have not appeared since the overture; now they convey not only the gravity of the theme but also the agonies to be endured by Christ, here seen as the sacrificial lamb whose death will redeem the world.
He was despised (Isaiah 53:3 and 50:6)
Song: Alto
He was despised and rejected of men,
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.
He gave His back to the smiters,
and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair:
He hid not His face from shame and spitting.
Mrs Cibber, the sister of composer Thomas Arne, is believed to have sung this aria at the premiere of Messiah. She was really an actress rather than a singer; Sheridan reported that ‘it was not to any extraordinary powers of voice (whereof she had but a moderate share) nor to a greater degree of skill in musick (wherein many of the Italians must be allowed to exceed her) that she owed her excellence, but to expression only.’
It was later said that ‘by a natural pathos, and perfect conception of the words, she often penetrated the heart, when others, with infinitely greater skill, could only reach the ear.’ A possibly apocryphal tale has the Rev. Dr Patrick Delany so moved by her performance of ‘He was despised’ that he exclaimed, ‘Woman, for this, be all thy sins forgiven!’
Surely He hath borne our griefs (Isaiah 53:4–5)
Chorus
And with His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5)
Chorus
All we, like sheep (Isaiah 53:6)
Chorus
Surely He hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows:
He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.
And with His stripes we are healed.
All we, like sheep, have gone astray,
we have turned ev’ry one to his own way;
and the Lord hath laid on Him
the iniquity of us all.
One of the ways in which oratorio differed from opera was in the importance given in the former to the chorus. Even for oratorio, however, the quantity and significance of the chorus writing in Messiah are remarkable.
This series of three choruses takes in an immense sweep of moods: the jerky rhythms of ‘Surely’ symbolise the violence inflicted on Christ; the melodic lines in ‘And with his stripes’ begin with a disturbing angular motif for the whip blows and end in a smooth flowing contour for the healing they bring; the almost trite way in which the chorus acknowledges its sinful actions is slammed by the hard message of how much it cost to redeem those sins when the music is suddenly jolted into an ominous, highly chromatic F minor for the last lines.
All they that see Him (Psalm 22:7 – Book of Common Prayer)
Accompagnato: Tenor
He trusted in God (Psalm 22:8 – BCP)
Chorus
All they that see Him laugh Him to scorn;
they shoot out their lips,
and shake their heads, saying:
He trusted in God that He would deliver Him:
let Him deliver Him, if He delight in Him.
Jennens achieved a dramatic coup de force by taking many of his psalm texts from the Book of Common Prayer rather than using the Bible versions. The Book of Common Prayer was the source of the translations used in the public worship of the Church of England; written to be publicly declaimed, they had a distinctive rhythm and cadence and would have been immediately familiar to Messiah audiences in Handel’s day.
The ‘whipping’ rhythm of ‘He gave His back to the smiters’ and ‘Surely He hath borne our griefs’ continues as the accompaniment to this tenor recitative; the furious fugal writing of ‘He trusted in God’ recalls the crowd scenes of the German oratorio tradition, as for example in J.S. Bach’s St John and St Matthew Passions.
Thy rebuke hath broken His heart (Psalm 69:21 – BCP)
Accompagnato: Tenor
Behold and see (Lamentations 1:12)
Song: Tenor
He was cut off (Isaiah 53:8)
Accompagnato: Tenor
But Thou didst not leave (Psalm 16:10)
Song: Tenor
Thy rebuke hath broken His heart;
He is full of heaviness.
He looked for some to have pity on Him,
but there was no man,
neither found He any to comfort Him.
Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow
like unto His sorrow!
He was cut off out of the land of the living;
for the transgression of Thy people was He stricken.
But Thou didst not leave His soul in Hell,
nor didst Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption.
After the uproar of the previous chorus, Handel gives us a lament for solo voice over slow, drawn-out harmonies which perfectly captures the sense of utter loneliness and betrayal of Christ on the cross. The tenor who sang of comfort in Part I is now left bereft of any comfort.
But Jennens’ aim with all this extended meditation on Christ’s passion is to focus on its result: Christ’s triumph over death and suffering. Perhaps this is why the actual death of Christ is barely mentioned in the libretto: Jennens takes us almost directly from Christ suffering on the cross to Christ restored triumphant to life in the bright and confident ‘But Thou didst not leave’.
Lift up your heads (Psalm 24:7–10)
Chorus
Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors,
and the King of Glory shall come in.
Who is this King of Glory?
The Lord strong and mighty;
the Lord mighty in battle,
The Lord of Hosts:
He is the King of Glory.
Jennens then moves straight to Christ’s ascension, using the imagery of the psalm to characterise the victorious King of Glory entering heaven. Handel divides the chorus into two parts, upper voices against lower voices, to match the question-and-answer structure of the text; the dotted rhythms here have a martial air to symbolise battle and victory.
Unto which of the angels (Hebrews 1:5)
Recitative: Tenor
Let all the angels of God (Hebrews 1:6)
Chorus
Unto which of the angels said He at any time,
Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee?
Let all the angels of God worship Him.
Christ, now in heaven, is acknowledged as the Son of God in this recitative and chorus. Handel skilfully weaves together the triumphant opening phrase of the chorus and a contrasting theme based on the same motif at twice the speed to produce a joyous outpouring of praise.
Thou art gone up on high (Psalm 68:18 – BCP)
Song: Soprano
Thou art gone up on high;
Thou hast led captivity captive,
and received gifts for men,
yea, even for Thine enemies,
that the Lord God might dwell among them.
The text continues the martial theme of ‘Lift up your heads’ with the imagery of a victorious general marching home with his defeated enemy in chains, and climbing up to his throne to receive tribute. The message is more subtle than that, though: this battle has been waged by God on behalf of the very forces which have opposed him – disobedient humankind. Handel here chooses a more abstract musical style to allow the audience to focus on the deeper message.
The Lord gave the word (Psalm 68:11 – BCP)
Chorus
The Lord gave the word:
great was the company of the preachers.
Jennens shifts the focus from the angel hosts praising God to the human army that now goes out to the world with news of Christ’s victory over death. The opening fanfare from the tenors and basses is answered by an exultant and confident acclamation in simple but festive strains.
How beautiful are the feet (Romans 10:15, Psalm 19:4 – BCP)
Song: Alto
How beautiful are the feet of them
that preach the gospel of peace,
and bring glad tidings of good things.
In Jewish tradition, the feet were among the very humblest parts of the body: even Jewish slaves would not wash feet; that was left to foreigners. If the very feet of the messengers of peace are beautiful, how glorious must they and their message be!
Their sound is gone out (Psalm 19:4 – BCP)
Chorus
Their sound is gone out into all lands,
and their words unto the ends of the world.
Trumpet-like entries from the chorus echo as if around the four corners of the earth; the answering phrase arches up and down a whole octave as if encompassing the whole of creation.
Why do the nations (Psalm 2:1–2 – BCP)
Song: Bass
Let us break their bonds (Psalm 2:3 – BCP)
Chorus
He that dwelleth in heaven (Psalm 2:4 – BCP)
Recitative: Tenor
Thou shalt break them (Psalm 2:9)
Recitative: Tenor
Why do the nations so furiously rage together:
why do the people imagine a vain thing?
The kings of the earth rise up,
and the rulers take counsels together
against the Lord and against His anointed.
Let us break their bonds asunder,
and cast away their yokes from us.
He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn;
the Lord shall have them in derision.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron;
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
This series of movements comments on the reception of this ‘gospel of peace’ in a rude and hostile world. The bass aria ‘Why do the nations’ uses the operatic convention of fast, agitated figures in the accompaniment to convey the idea of fury and strife (as in the Part I aria ‘But who may abide’),
and the soloist’s extended passages of triplets add to the impression of confusion and anger.
The extended second part of this aria was later telescoped into a few dramatic bars of recitative, but the original version that you will hear tonight allows the turmoil to continue rising to fever pitch until it bursts out into the chorus ‘Let us break their bonds’, an insolent rejection of the authority of the Messiah, the one anointed by God to rule.
The tenor aria, with its mocking accompaniment leaping from teasing trill-like figures on the high strings to blunt, aggressive thrusts on the low strings, shows the chorus’ arrogance for what it is and affirms that the final victory will go to God.
Hallelujah (Revelation 19:6, 11:15 and 19:16)
Chorus
Hallelujah,
for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth,
Hallelujah!
The Kingdom of this world
is become the Kingdom of our Lord
and of His Christ;
and He shall reign forever and ever,
King of Kings,
and Lord of Lords,
Hallelujah!
The Hallelujah Chorus is without doubt the best-known music from Messiah, and probably the best-known piece of choral music in the Western world. On its own, it is a stirring anthem celebrating the absolute sovereignty of God over every earthly power; here at the end of Part II of Messiah, it has an even greater cumulative force as an affirmation of the whole message of Christ’s birth, suffering, death and resurrection.
Messiah: part the third
Victory over Death
I know that my Redeemer liveth (Job 19:25–26; 1 Corinthians 15:20)
Song: Soprano
I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that He shall stand at the latter day
upon the earth.
And tho’ worms destroy this body,
yet in my flesh shall I see God.
For now is Christ risen from the dead,
the first fruits of them that sleep.
In this the third and final Part of Messiah, Jennens focuses on Christ’s victory over death which will in turn liberate from death those who believe in him. The simple confidence of Job (who, in the Old Testament story, had been assailed with all manner of trials – the loss of all his wealth, the death of his family, illness and total exclusion from society – as a test of his faith) is linked by Jennens with the New Testament understanding of Christ as the foundation of faith in eternal life. Handel’s radiant aria for soprano solo perfectly matches the humble sincerity of the texts.
Since by man came death (1 Corinthians 15:21–22)
Chorus
Since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
This brief chorus contrasts solemn, chorale-like passages speaking about death in hushed tones with strong, festive affirmations of Christ as the gate to eternal life.
Behold, I tell you a mystery (1 Corinthians 15:51–52)
Accompagnato: Bass
The trumpet shall sound (1 Corinthians 15:52)
Song: Bass
Behold, I tell you a mystery:
We shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be chang’d,
in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trumpet.
The trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be rais’d incorruptible,
and we shall be chang’d.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption,
and this mortal must put on immortality.
The duet for solo trumpet and bass ‘The trumpet shall sound’ is marked pomposo (with pomp) in the score, and the strong rhythmic impulse of the opening combined with the plain yet bold melodic lines give the movement great dignity and power.
Then shall be brought to pass (1 Corinthians 15:54)
Recitative: Alto
O death, where is thy sting? (1 Corinthians 15:55–56)
Duet: Alto and Tenor
But thanks be to God (1 Corinthians 15:57)
Chorus
Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written;
Death is swallow’d up in victory.
O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin,
and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God,
who giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The text carries on directly from ‘The trumpet shall sound’, but the mood is completely different: the dramatic fireworks have now given way to a mood of contemplation. But the sense of triumph is still present, in the rising melodic contour on the rhetorical questions which seem to taunt the now-vanquished Death.
Handel shifts briefly to a minor key to consider the ‘old order’, when humankind, unable to avoid breaking some strand of the immense and complex web of Old Testament law, could look forward only to death as their ultimate punishment. The chorus, however, brushes aside such morbid reflections with a joyful affirmation of the Christian hope of resurrection.
If God be for us (Romans 8:31 and 33–34)
Song: Soprano
If God be for us,
who can be against us?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?
It is God that justifieth:
Who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again;
who is at the right hand of God,
who makes intercession for us.
Mozart replaced this aria with an accompanied recitative, with the approval of noted patron Baron Gottfried van Swieten who described the original as ‘cold’! Certainly the theological arguments in the text are more abstract and less ‘stirring’ than in ‘The trumpet shall sound’, but they are nevertheless of
key importance: Jennens described this section of his libretto as ‘The final conquest over sin’.
Handel’s elegant setting with its duet between soprano and violin does not have the same sense of pageantry as ‘The trumpet shall sound’, but it has no less assurance.
Worthy is the Lamb (Revelation 5:12–13)
Chorus
Amen
Chorus
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,
and hath redeemed us to God by His blood,
to receive power, and riches,
and wisdom, and strength,
and honour, and glory, and blessing.
Blessing and honour,
glory and power be unto Him
that sitteth upon the throne,
and unto the Lamb,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
The last words of Messiah come from the last book of the Bible: the Revelation of St John. This book, written as encouragement to early Christian communities facing persecution, presents their sufferings as a battleground between good and evil over which Christ and his followers will
ultimately triumph.
This hymn of exultant praise which, in Revelation, is sung by ‘every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and in the sea’, begins with a solid declaration from the full chorus and orchestra before moving into a fugal passage in which the different voices toss phrases to
each other, building to a near frenzy of excitement.
But Handel does not let the work finish in a commotion: he pulls back at the beginning of the ‘Amen’ and opens with a long and stately fugal theme from the basses alone. He lets the texture build only to interrupt it with instrumental passages. But when he finally does allow the work to reach
its climax, it comes inexorably and with utter confidence, flushed with excitement and grinning from ear to ear.
Annotations by Natalie Shea
Symphony Australia © 2002
Reprinted with the permission of
Symphony Services Australia