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Resumo
- 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.
Bibliografia (Clique para mostrar)
- 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, da 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
