Why Handel's Messiah is a "holiday soundtrack for the ages."

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DEC. 18 2001 6:53 PM
Unto Us a Hit Is Born
Why Handel's Messiah is a holiday soundtrack for the ages.
By Adam Baer
Death and love notwithstanding, religion is the classical composer's bread and butter.
So, it should come as no surprise that the classical canon includes piles and piles of
Christmas soundtracks. But despite the abundance—think of Bach's Christmas Cantatas
and Oratorio, Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols, and music by Bruckner, Couperin,
Durufle, Gabrieli, Palestrina, Rameau, Saint-Saëns, Vivaldi, and, who could forget,
Tchaikovsky—one classical work is heard more than any other on radio stations and in
concert halls the world over.
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Handel's Messiah has been a popular hit since it was penned in London some 260
years ago. It's powerful, earthy, and extreme—the perfect kind of work to offer solace
and celebration on the cusp of the holiday season. But lots of other Christmastime
works convey similar comfort and joy. What is it about Messiah that puts it on
concert schedules every year?
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2. Messiah is an oratorio, an unstaged dramatic choral work written for orchestra and
solo voices. And like any oratorio, its most important element is the text. Handel—it's
pronounced "Hand"+ "ull," like the part of the frying pan you hold—set his music to a
biblically inspired libretto written in English by Charles Jennens. This was an incredibly
lucky choice: Who knew in 1741 that English was to become the dominant language of
the world? (Not the introspective J.S. Bach, for one: He wrote his most powerful
oratorios and liturgical choral works in Latin or German.)
Size and scope is also vital to Messiah's success; Handel's are grandiose and far-
reaching. In contrast, Bach wrote his cantatas, passions, and Christmas Oratorio with
a style indicative of the kind of man he was: His harmonies are more chromatic (they
blur the home key by moving up and down by half-step); his melodic lines are longer
and more intricate than Handel's (Click here to listen the opening fugue from
Messiah's Overture), requiring a small, more-skilled choir and orchestra to sing and
play them; and he wrote them all to be performed in a podunk Leipzig church, not a
big-city theater.
Handel also treats his singers like singers, whereas Bach treats his singers like
instruments, writing for them difficult leaps, suspensions, and harmonies. Handel's
vocal lines are comfortably written—the term is "in range"—for the voice type to
which they are assigned. Furthermore, Handel's many instrumental lines are written
straighter than Bach's, which indulge in high-stakes contrapuntal games. The result is
that Handel's music sounds better with more singers singing louder, contrary to
Bach's, which needs fewer singers and an intimate concert space. And Handel, lest we
forget, wrote his music for money—to be a star in a city chock-full of compositional
luminaries. Bach wrote his music for a church—for God, and some would say himself:
He wasn't concerned with what made good entertainment.

3. Another reason for Messiah's mass appeal is that it's composed of many
interchangeable movements, or short vocal pieces, introduced by "recitatives": spoken
text above simple harmonic accompaniment. In fact, nearly every performance of the
work customizes it for the talents of the group and the interests of the audience. Just
like the people who attend a high-school performance of Messiah probably won't
want to hear the whole thing (give them the Greatest Hits version), so might the
audience at a Gothic New York church want to hear the authentic, full version that
Handel signed off on later in life.
But the most compelling reason Messiah reaches as many people as it does is its lucid
symbolism. Handel's extroverted intentions, narrative and musical, are superobvious.
He's the Andrew Lloyd Weber of 18 -century London. Listen to the first tenor's piece
in the work, "Comfort Ye." Pillows of sound, sewed together by strings, lay the
groundwork for the solo line: a three-note statement that floats down as if it's laying
itself to rest. Sung with patience and peace, "Comfort Ye" feels like a warm blanket.
But then, just when you think you've ensconced yourself in warmth, the word
"iniquity" appears in the text, sung on a dissonant non-chord tone. You're dismayed
until the libretto proceeds, the "iniquity" is "pardoned," and everything comes
together in a gentle, major-key cadence.
It's also pretty hard to stay aloof when Handel wants you to feel scared. Take
Messiah's "For behold, darkness shall cover the Earth": a minor-key movement that
begins with slurred, two-note motifs (the first note of the pair weighted), which climb
the scale in a chromatic manner as if there's something frightening ahead. The
descending melodic figure is sung by the lowest possible male voice: a bass. Until, of
course, the string accompaniment modulates into a major mode, and crescendos
increase in fortitude to signify the brightness of God below the phrase"But the Lord
shall rise around me."
Elation is sprinkled throughout Messiah like white-gold confetti. Pleasure your ear
with the movement "Rejoice Greatly": Sung by opera's Glenda-the-Good-Witch, the
soprano, this major-key tune is set to a zippy tempo; composed of short, sweet notes-
droplets; ornamented with frolicking trills; driven by fast runs up and down the scale;
th

4. and infused with a light, airy spirit. In fact, note the way the word "Rejoice" is set. "Re"
is always at a lower pitch than "joice," so that each mention of the concept includes an
optimistically dramatic leap up the musical staff.
But Messiah's most colorful use of text-painting appears in "All We Like Sheep." Here,
the text of the title, followed by the phrase "have gone astray" is set with simple
humor. "All We Like Sheep" is sung declamatory-style—that is, all at once, in unison
just like, well, the way sheep behave. Then "have gone astray" is symbolized by the
tune's rupture into two distinct camps: those who sing up the musical scale and those
who sing down it. The beauty of this concept is that the two camps sing the phrase at
once, creating a textbook example of what's called "contrary motion." Picture it on the
piano: your right hand moving right while your left hand moves left. At the end, are
your hands together? Or are they "astray"?
All of these little tricks are what make Messiah so effective. But what's great about the
work is that they're simple enough to work for the average listener without this
explanation. They're smart, but accessible. So, by the time the "Hallelujah" chorus
rolls around, you're ready to belt out a strong tune and give thanks.
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