Christian Pure

Handel’s Messiah: Its Scripture Words, Its Making and Its First Performance for Charity

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概要

  • Every word of Messiah is Scripture: Charles Jennens compiled it from the King James Version and, for the psalms, the Book of Common Prayer psalter.
  • Handel wrote the music in about 24 days, from 22 August to 14 September 1741, at his house in Brook Street, London.
  • It was first performed in the Musick Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin, at noon on 13 April 1742 (Old Style), in Passion Week, as a benefit for prisoners in debt, Mercer’s Hospital and the Charitable Infirmary; a second Dublin performance on 3 June was for Handel’s own benefit.
  • More than 700 people came to a hall Handel described as holding 600; about £400 was raised, some £127 for each charity, and Handel and the performers took nothing from that performance.
  • London heard it three times at Covent Garden in March 1743, to a mixed reception and complaints that a playhouse was no place for Scripture; from 1750 Handel gave it every year for the Foundling Hospital and left the hospital a fair copy of the score and parts.
  • The story that George II started the custom of standing for the Hallelujah chorus first appears in a letter of 1780, and no record from 1743 places the king at Messiah.
  • Handel and Jennens meant Messiah for the season before Easter; its Christmas tradition grew later, especially in the United States.

Handel’s Messiah is a sacred oratorio whose words come entirely from the Bible. Charles Jennens chose the passages, from the King James Version and the Prayer Book psalms, and Handel set them to music in about 24 days in 1741. It was first sung in Dublin on 13 April 1742, to raise money for prisoners and the sick. Messiah’s first performance was a charity benefit, and every word it sets is Scripture. The Dublin papers recorded where that day’s money…

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参考文献（クリックして表示）
  • The Holy Bible, King James Version (Job 19:25–26; Psalm 2:1; Psalm 69:20; Isaiah 9:6, 40:1, 53:3; Luke 2:14; 1 Corinthians 15:20; Revelation 5:12, 11:15, 19:6, 19:16), via BibleGateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/
  • The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Job 19:25; Isaiah 9:6, 53:3), via BibleGateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/
  • The Book of Common Prayer (1662), the Psalter, Psalms 1–5 and 69–70, Church of England. https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/psalter/psalms-1-5 and https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/psalter/psalms-69-70
  • Charles Jennens, Messiah: An Oratorio, as it is Perform’d at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden (London: J. Watts, c. 1749), Wikisource transcription. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Messiah_(1749)
  • Horatio Townsend, An Account of the Visit of Handel to Dublin (Dublin, 1852), reprinting Faulkner’s Dublin Journal, 、 Dublin News-Letter and Handel’s and Jennens’s letters, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/anaccountvisith00towngoog
  • Ilias Chrissochoidis, ed., Handel Reference Database, documents for 1741, 1742, 1743 and 1750 (Jennens’s letters to Edward Holdsworth; Handel to Jennens, 29 December 1741; Covent Garden advertisements; “Philalethes,” Universal Spectator, 19 March 1743; Foundling Hospital reports), Stanford University. http://web.stanford.edu/~ichriss/HRD/1741.htm, http://web.stanford.edu/~ichriss/HRD/1742.htm, http://web.stanford.edu/~ichriss/HRD/1743.htm, http://web.stanford.edu/~ichriss/HRD/1750.htm
  • Sir William Forbes, An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: A. Constable, 1807), letter CXLVI, Beattie to the Rev. Dr Laing, May 1780, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/anaccountlifean02forbgoog (second scan: https://archive.org/details/anaccountlifean00beatgoog)
  • “Gerald Coke Handel Collection,” the Foundling Museum. https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/our-art-and-objects/gerald-coke-handel-collection/
  • “Messiah libretto,” the Foundling Museum. https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/object/messiah-libretto-2/
  • “George Frederic Handel,” Coram Story. https://coramstory.org.uk/explore/content/article/george-frederic-handel/
  • “Music at the Foundling Hospital,” Coram Story. https://coramstory.org.uk/explore/content/article/music-at-the-foundling-hospital/
  • “Music in 18th-century Dublin,” In Tune exhibition, Trinity College Dublin Library. https://www.tcd.ie/library/exhibitions/in-tune/music_in_18thcentury_dublin.php
  • “George Frideric Handel at the British Library,” RISM, 14 April 2016 (the Messiah autograph, GB-Lbl R.M.20.f.2). https://rism.info/musical_anniversaries/2016/04/14/george-frideric-handel-at-the-british-library.html
  • “12 Surprising Facts about Handel’s Messiah,” Handel and Haydn Society. https://handelandhaydn.org/handels-messiah-fact-or-fiction/
  • George Pratt and Terry Blain, “Handel’s Messiah,” BBC Music Magazine, 7 September 2024. https://www.classical-music.com/features/handel-messiah
  • “The Glorious History of Handel’s Messiah,” Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-glorious-history-of-handels-messiah-148168540/
  • “Dates of Easter Sunday and Perpetual Calendar, 1550–2049, UK and Ireland,” GENUKI. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/easter
  • Virgil, Eclogues 4.1, The Latin Library. https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vergil/ec4.shtml
  • “1752 Calendar Change,” Connecticut State Library research guide (Old Style and New Style dates). https://libguides.ctstatelibrary.org/hg/colonialresearch/calendar

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