The Messiah

See also: Messiah (homonymy)

The Messie ( Messiah in English) is a Oratorio (HWV 56) composed in 1741 by Georg Friedrich Haendel.

It is undoubtedly its most popular and known work - only the continuations of Water Music and Royal Firework Music have a comparable notoriety. This monument of the Baroque music remains extremely popular in concert, in the Anglo-Saxon world and elsewhere.

The word Messie come from Hebrew Messiah and finds its origin in the religion Jew before to be adopted by Christianity. It means “Oint of the Lord”. For the Christians, it is Jesus-Christ. Haendel himself was an enthusiastic Christian and her work magnifie the life of Jesus and the significance of her religious message.

If the title of the oratorio is simply “Messiah”, one often says “the Messiah” in an erroneous way. But this counterfeited title is so frequent that much comes from there to believe that it is the good.

The text refers mainly to the Resurrection of the Messiah and the Redemption which it operates: work was written for the time of Easter and was played for the first time at the time of this festival. However, it became of tradition, since the death of the type-setter, to play it during the time of the Avent - the weeks which precede the festival by Christmas, rather than during the time of Easter. These concerts often play makes of it only the first section of the Messie , concerning the Advertisement of come from Christ and her Birth, as well as the chorus of the alleluia. Certain units, the such Symphony orchestra of Montreal, play it in entirety. Work is also played at Easter, in particular the parts concerning resurrection which are often parts played during the offices. The Air of the soprano I Know that my Redeemer Liveth is often heard at the time of Christian funeral. The tradition wants in addition that the fifth and the sixth measurements of this air were used as a basis for the composition of the air of the chime of Big Ben, in London, at the end of the 18th century.

Composition and creation

The oratorio was written in 1741 with London on a booklet of Charles Jennens inspired by the Bible, but was created only on April 13rd 1742 at the time of an official reception of charity to the Temple Bar of Dublin.

The innovation of Haendel is to place at the disposal of preaching the dramatic and musical spring of the opera. Although “oratorio crowned”, the Messiah resolutely left the church; given on scene, he marries all the resources of the scene, except for the play of the actors and the machineries. The inversion operated by Haendel enables him to reach a new dimension by a broad theatrical amplification, which leaves free course to its will to seek a success near the audience.

However, in March 1743 during the British creation of the Messiah, a cabal of excessively pious people pokes hatreds, finding the fresco grandiloquent and too far away from the half-silence which true prayer requires to it. The war of make out will last several months, carrying a considerable wrong to the success of work. Haendel will have to limit to two representations hearings of the Messiah in 1743 and to give any in 1744 of it. One knows, certainly, that the king himself had risen at the time of the first by hearing the thunder of the sentence of the alleluia For the Lord omnipotent God , thus giving rise to the British tradition which wants that the room rises at this time during each execution in concert. But this instinctive enthusiasm had not been enough to ensure success. For the time, there was something of nine in the work of Haendel: an abundance of chorus (twenty, for fifty-two parts on the whole) which had convinced the Irishmen but left the British pantois, without any other comparable reference in the kind of oratorios crowned which they had heard hitherto. The posterity was to allot this failure to the traditional orchestration.

Work is divided into three parts:

  1. Old Testament : prophecies of the arrival of Christ, the Annunciation and the Nativity.

  2. Old and New Testament : the Passion, the Resurrection and the Rise of Christ.
  3. New Testament : the Resurrection of the Christian heart.

Work is written for orchestra and chorus, with five soloists (Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, Against-tenor, Ténor and low).

Haendel directed many times the Messiah, often adapting work to the circumstances, so that any version cannot be regarded as authentic.

To listen to the oratorio

The first two parts of the Messiah of Haendel by the chorus of the MIT
  1. Sinfony
  2. Comfort Ye
  3. Ev' ry Valley
  4. And the Glory off the Lord
  5. Thus saith the Lord
  6. Goal who may abide
  7. And He shall purify
  8. Behold, has virgin shall conceive
  9. O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion
  10. For behold, darkness shall cover the Earth
  11. The people that walked in darkness
  12. For unto custom has child is born
  13. Pifa
  14. There were shepherds abiding in the field
  15. And lo, the Angel off the Lord cam upon them
  16. And the Angel said unto them
  17. And suddenly there was with the Angel
  18. Glory to god
  19. Rejoice greatly
  20. Then shall the eyes off the blind Be opened
  21. He shall feed his flock
  22. His yoke is easy
  23. Behold the Lamb off god
  24. He was despised
  25. Surely He hath limits our objections
  26. And with his stripes
  27. All we, like sheep
  28. All they that see him laugh him to scorn
  29. He trusted in God
  30. Thy rebuke hath broken His heart
  31. Behold and see
  32. He was cut off
  33. Goal Thou didst not leave
  34. Top spin up ye heads, O ye spoil
  35. Unto which off the Angels
  36. Let all the Angels off God worship Him
  37. Thou art gone up one high
  38. The Lord gave the Word
  39. How beautiful are the feet
  40. Their sound is gone out
  41. Why C the Nations
  42. Let custom station-wagon to their jumps asunder
  43. He that dwelleth in heaven
  44. Thou shalt station-wagon them
  45. Hallelujah

External bonds

  • booklet

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