Free Republic

At Christmas, instead of a lot of pop Christmas songs, I have been listening to passages from Handel's Messiah" oratorio, including the powerfully beautiful Christmas-oriented "For unto us a child is born" based on the writings of the Prophet Isaiah, and the soaringly magnificent Hallelujah Chorus. To hear these, compared to everything else makes me ask if this was the pinnacle of human musical achievement? Will there ever be anything greater? An argument can be made for it at least this far. This oratorio, after all, is touched by eternity. We listen to this joyful piece today, nearly 300 years...

Nothing announces the holiday season quite as gloriously as the “Hallelujah” chorus from George Frideric Handel’s Messiah. Orchestras and choirs all over the nation will be performing the famous oratorio as Christmas approaches. But when Handel wrote the work in 1741, he had a different holiday altogether in mind. “It was actually intended for Easter week,” explains conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, who will lead the Nashville Symphony and Chorus in performances of Messiah this weekend. The first performance of the oratorio took place in Dublin in April of 1742, with the London premiere happening the following year in March. In Europe,...