*HUGS*
And thanks for opening the doors to our Christmas Music Dedication!
Hodie Christus Natus Est! Alleluia, Alleluia! Hodie Christus Natus Est! Alleluia, Alleluia!
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Hodie Christus Natus Est! Alleluia, Alleluia! In 1741, George Frederick Handel faced the fact that London audiences were no longer interested in Italian opera. His two latest operas had bombed, and Handel was seriously thinking of leaving England and returning to the German-speaking world.
During Holy Week, London’s theaters were closed, and Charles Jennens, Handel’s favorite librettist, came up with a religious work that could be presented in the theater during that week. An oratorio, which is a religious cantata, would guarantee Handel a full house, which is the goal of every composer who writes music for a living. Handel knew that the authorities would not make an exception for Holy Week even for a religious piece, so the idea went in another direction. Handel decided to take his new work, “Messiah”, to Dublin in the fall of 1741 where it was received with great acclaim.
The first London performance in 1743 got a less pleasant reception. There were objections to using a theater as a venue for the performance of a sacred work and to using operatic singers of dubious personal morality to sing it. Even Jennens had issues with some of Handel’s music, which brought on yet another stroke for poor Handel, who had experienced a major stroke in 1737.
Each time “Messiah” was staged, Handel made adjustments to the score. Sometimes a piece was lengthened or shortened due to artistic instincts. Sometimes it was re-scored for different voice. Sometimes the weakness of a particular singer required a rewrite. Hogwood uses the 1754 Foundling Hospital version, by which time Handel had pretty much stabilized the score.
“Messiah” is written in three acts. Part 1 covers the prologue to Christ’s birth to his entry into Jerusalem. Part 2 covers his suffering, death and resurrection, and the spreading of the gospels by his disciples. Part 3 covers the promise of eternal life. Each part is structured like the act of a Baroque opera.
Jennens’ idea was to use quotes from the Old Testament to explain quotes from the New Testament. Direct narrative is avoided, and no singer has to impersonate Jesus, which would have been considered blasphemous. (The one exception to this was setting the various Passions to music, which Bach did.)
Instruments of that period were quite different from today, as were the performance practices of the Baroque era.
String instruments played with gut strings, not steel. The sound decay rate for gut is more rapid, and that gives the strings a thinner, more plangent quality. Vibrato, which is ubiquitous today, was used only rarely and for expressive effect. At the time, there were a large number of markings in the score for bowing and articulation, most of which have been forgotten over the centuries. After Handel, Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang’s father, wrote the first violin tutorial, which explains in detail just how these various markings are to be played. The period instrument movement has revived these techniques, which are quite different from how string instruments are played today.
The wind instruments had not yet been supercharged and had smaller bores. The (French) horn of the era was the valveless hunting horn, which was unreliable in pitch. Composers of the era used those horns for their humorous effect.
The vocal tradition of the era avoided vibrato, and the lack of vibrato gives the human voice a very different quality. Singers were expected to improvise their own ornamentation using the written score as a guideline. This was especially true in da capo arias which are written in A-B-A structure. The first time through the “A” section, the vocalist was expected to follow the score. The second time through, the vocalist was expected to ornament the written vocal line to show off his or her chops.
Choristers did not include women, and the soprano roles were sung by little boys.
Both orchestras and choruses were small in size.
Speed indications had a different meaning in the Baroque era. All Baroque music is dance music, even religious music. An instruction like allegro indicates a quick dance tempo, and adagio indicates a slower dance tempo. The modern interpretation of these instructions comes from the Victorian era, when many traditions were lost. Hogwood avoids the modern for a Baroque understanding of what these instructions mean.
This “Messiah” sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard. Stay with me for the next few hours. You’ll be amazed.
Baroque operas begin with an overture, or sinfonia. The format is a slow introduction with dotted notes in duple time, followed by a fugue, followed by a march, gigue or minuet. But Handel knew what he was doing, and he stops the fugue cold with a cadence in E minor, making way for human voice. Note the atmosphere, not so much of joy, but of anticipated joy. At 1:36 the sense of yearning for the Christ figure is palpable.
