Second Concert of the 56th Season

George (or Georg) Frideric Handel (or Händel), that German-born British subject who wrote Italian music, was a bundle of contradictions. The varied spelling of his name reflects the mobility of artists and composers common to that period. Names were often spelled according to the practice of the country of residence. He spelled his name "Handel" on his petition for citizenship.

Handel had a complex personality. On the one hand, he was pious and sentimental to the point of crying over his own music when it dealt with the sufferings of the Lord. On the other hand, he had an uncontrollable temper that prompted associates to play practical jokes on him, sometimes resulting in violence. (A prankster once untuned all the instruments just before a concert for the Prince of Wales and Handel was so enraged that he picked up a kettledrum and threw it at the concertmaster. He was persuaded to continue the concert only after the Prince made a personal plea.)

Perhaps his personality was shaped by his difficulty in pursuing his musical interest. His father insisted that he become a lawyer, and banned all musical instruments from the house. He further forbade young George to visit any other house containing a musical instrument. George managed to smuggle a clavichord (a very quiet keyboard instrument) into an upstairs room without his father's knowledge.

Handel was an almost exact contemporary of J.S. Bach, born in the same year and dying nine years later. They had similar backgrounds, came from the same part of Germany, were both devout Protestants, but were temperamentally quite different. While Bach remained steadfastly middle class and spent his meager earnings on raising a large family, Handel was a cosmopolitan who traveled widely, made and lost fortunes, and mingled with the aristocracy and the intellectual elite.

He was overwhelmed by Italy, where he spent much time. His Italianate operas were very successful, and brought him great fame in England soon after he arrived there. In the span of less than forty years, he wrote forty-six operas, all in Italian style. When the public's interest in Italian opera began to wane, Handel began to work more in the oratorio form. His "second career" made him even more famous, and today he is known mostly for his oratorios, of which his Messiah is the most performed.

He wrote the Messiah in 1741 while in a fit of despair over the failure of two of his operas. He confined himself to his room where he wrote, almost in a frenzy, for little over three weeks to produce his most enduring work, which was an instant success. Musicologist Dr. Hugo Leichentritt says:

"Messiah is one of those mysterious marvels of great art that appear but once in a century, one of those outstanding products of genius which appeals to all lovers of music, to modest amateurs, and even to illiterate persons, as well as to severe critics of art, musicians of all styles, all epochs, and to all nations alike, irrespective of all the differences of artistic creed which in other respects may separate them."

Although we do not hear the work in its entirety, there are not many cuts and those are from parts II and III.