Sounds of Christmas Pre-Concert Notes
DID YOU KNOW…..
George Fredric Handel was born in 1685 in the little town of Halle, in Saxon Germany. He died on Good Friday, l759 in London and is buried in Westminster Abby among all the poets and Kings and Queens. You’d think with all the music he composed someone would have had the sense to have had some of it played at his funeral. But the music was composed by William Croft. Handel got his revenge later. No one listens to Croft, nowadays, or even knows who he is!!!
“Messiah” was first performed in Dublin, Ireland in 1742, with 700 people packed into a theater designed to hold 600. In the advertisements, ladies were asked to wear skirts without hoops and gentlemen were asked to leave their swords at home to make more room. It was a huge success, with no fights occurring and Handel using it to close the season with a bang each year.
“Messiah” is an oratorio, and one of many Handel wrote. An oratorio is like an opera without props, scenery and costumes. It tells a story, like an opera, but is much cheaper to present.
The first performance, ”Messiah” was a charity event held to raise money for prisoners and orphans. There were 32 singers in the chorus–16 boy trebles–and 16 men for the other parts. The orchestra was quite small, also, numbering about 32 players. Where would the Morman Tabernacle Choir be today without “Messiah”????
In London, it could not be performed in a cathedral. The rich middle class considered professional singers to be good for nothings and reprobates and whose exploits were still a chief topic of gossipmongers and tattletales. It wasn’t so bad when Old Testament themes were used in oratorios. But an oratorio based on a Christian theme…and in the theater, no less…well, they weren’t whether that would do at all. So, the first performance in London was in the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden on March 23, 1743, with repeat performances on the 25th and 29th. It interesting that Handel conducted at during the Lent Easter period and not Christmas. When you hear “Messiah” in its full version, you could understand why.
Standing for the Hallelujah chorus is a tradition that continues to this day. WHY you ask. Well, no one’s quite sure how it got started except that King George II started it. One version is that he was so moved by the glory of the music that he stood in reverence, and that we should all do the same. It’s just as likely, knowing George, that his foot had gone to sleep and he stood up to get the circulation going, or that he arrived late (George was always late for things.) and everybody stood up because that’s what you do when the King arrives!!! You know how it ism, once the King stands up, everybody has to stand up!!!
The first full performance of “Messiah” in North America seems to have been in Boston, on Christmas Day, in 1818, although the “Hallelujah” chorus and other excerpts had been performed in New York as early as 1770. Expanding the orchestra, may make the sound bigger and more impressive, but it may not what Handel had in mind. The orchestras during the Classical Period were around 35 players. However, if Handel had had access to clarinets, trombones and double bassoons, he’d have used them, too.
