Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale
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CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM NOTES Saturday, December 14, 2013, 8pm George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Messiah is a child of the Enlightenment, that Zellerbach Hall Messiah, hwv 56 (1741) revolutionary mindset that promoted reason over unexamined belief, but Charles Jennens was rimo le parole, poi la musica: first the no Edward Gibbon, Thomas Paine or Thomas Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Pwords, then the music. Ask a roomful of Jefferson proclaiming a humanistic philosophy Nicholas McGegan, conductor people to identify the composer of Messiah, and based on rational inquiry. Instead, he sought to a roomful of hands will go up. Ask that same defend his deeply felt and conservative Anglican gathering to name the librettist, and puzzled si- Christianity against what he saw as intellec- Yulia Van Doren, soprano lence is likely to follow. To be sure, Messiah is tual attacks on the core of the Christian mes- Jay Carter, countertenor not a setting of a freshly written, original book; sage. In July 1741, Jennens wrote to his friend the text is a compilation of passages from the Edward Holdsworth: Lawrence Wiliford, tenor Old and New Testaments. But that makes it no Handel says he will do nothing next Philip Cutlip, bass-baritone less impressive an achievement. The work of a Winter, but I hope I shall perswade perceptive and passionate writer, Messiah’s li- him to set another Scripture Collection bretto is just as noteworthy in its own way as I have made for him, & perform it for Philharmonia Chorale George Frideric Handel’s immortal music. So his own Benefit in Passion Week. I hope Bruce Lamott, director before that music, a look at those fine words— he will lay out his whole Genius & Skill and their curator—is very much in order. upon it, that the Composition may ex- Charles Jennens’s palatial home at Gopsall, cell all his former Compositions, as the North West Leicestershire—near Bosworth Subject excells every other Subject. The Field, where the War of the Roses was conclu- Subject is Messiah. sively ended—was demolished in 1951 after years of neglect and abuse. Much the same can Jennens did indeed manage to “perswade” be said about Jennens himself: glamorous in his his eminent friend and colleague, but vic- day, his star faded rapidly and commentarial tory was tempered with disappointment, as PROGRAM wrecking balls gutted his posthumous reputa- we hear in another letter to Holdsworth, from tion. “Suleyman the Magnificent,” japed 18th- December 1741: century Shakespeare scholar George Steevens. George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Messiah, hwv 56 (1741) I heard with great pleasure at my ar- “A vain fool crazed by his wealth,” sniped rival in Town, that Handel had set the Samuel Johnson. Part I Oratorio of Messiah; but it was some Prickly, prissy, snippy, snooty, and wasp- mortification to me to hear that instead ish, Jennens was manifestly not a man of the INTERMISSION of performing it here he was gone to people. But charges that he was an intellec- Ireland with it. However, I hope we shall tual featherweight are unfounded. The sharp- Part II hear it when he comes back. est barbs are products of Steevens’s malicious PAUSE envy of Jennens’s classy Shakespeare editions These letters reveal that Messiah represents a and, as such, deserve permanent retirement. departure from Handel’s customary active and Part III Christopher Hogwood duly notes Jennens’s collaborative relationship with his librettists, in- “self-importance and intolerance, the high- cluding Jennens in previous projects such as Saul, handed manner of a wealthy country gentle- L’Allegro, and (probably) Israel in Egypt. Handel This length of this performance is approximately three hours. man, opinionated and cruel in his criticism, apparently set the completed Messiah libretto as whose ostentation made many of his contempo- handed to him, without the usual rounds of edi- raries enemies.” But, he also points out Jennens’s torial negotiations. That speaks well of Jennens’s many accomplishments, his educated taste, his literary skill, for his elegantly structured libretto This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Kit and Hayne Leland. passionate dedication to Handel’s music, his deserves a full share of the credit for Messiah’s well-designed libretti, and his often splendid perennial popularity. Jennens based his scrip- Cal Performances’ 2013–2014 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. editorial advice—such as restoring an excised tural selections on both theological and musical “Allelujah” to the Part I finale of Saul. considerations—Messiah is first and foremost an 1 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 2 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES oratorio libretto, not a religious tract. Consider of his output: Deborah and Athalia in 1733, Part I. Saving the best for last, Handel treats the English soloists over Italian opera singers (“he the very first section, drawn from the first five Alexander’s Feast and Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day concluding numbers—44 through 47—as one has hired all the goddesses from farces and the verses of Isaiah 40, which Jennens structured as in 1736, Saul and Israel in Egypt in 1739, and, sustained movement, almost in the manner of a singers of Roast Beef from between the acts at recitative-aria-chorus, a formula that will repeat most recently, 1740’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il recitative-free operatic finale. both theaters”), the Samson performances were itself—sometimes with significant expansion— Moderato, to texts adapted from John Milton by For his Dublin series, booked in the city’s warmly received. Thus emboldened, Handel throughout the entire oratorio. Charles Jennens. shiny new Music Hall on Fishamble Street, scheduled another series of six oratorio concerts Now it was Handel’s turn to clothe Jennens’s So it was a seasoned veteran who determined Handel planned an ambitious program of re- featuring the same company; they would begin masterful compilation with compelling and en- that Jennens’s new libretto would be ideal for a cent hits as well as old favorites. He presented on March 16 with a repeat of Samson followed tertaining music. He was more than up to the forthcoming Dublin concert series scheduled L’Allegro on December 23, Acis and Galatea and by a revival of L’Allegro on the 18th, with Messiah task. By 1741, George Frideric Handel was an to begin in late 1741. Handel started compos- the Ode on January 20. Esther and Alexander’s set for its London première on Wednesday, English institution, resident for 30 years, citi- ing Messiah on August 22 and completed the Feast followed on January 30 and February 13, March 23. In a fit of uncertainty about potential zen for the past 14 years, a robust (if not always manuscript on September 14—that’s 24 days, respectively. For the March concert version of backlash from Anglican right-wingers, Handel altogether healthy) man in his mid-fifties. As a or three-and-a-half weeks. Such speed has typi- Imeneo, the company was joined by singer/actress chose to advertise it only as “A New Sacred self-employed freelance musician, responsible to cally left commentators nonplussed if not down- Susannah Cibber, shortly to achieve immortal- Oratorio,” rather than referring to it by name. the dictates of the public rather than the direc- right confounded: how could anybody write a ity as the first soprano ever to perform Messiah: But the oratorio’s identity and subject mat- tives of courtly or clerical patrons, he had seen work of Messiah’s length in such an incredibly that came about on Tuesday, April 13, 1742. ter were known about town nonetheless, and the his full share of triumph and failure, boom and short time? That Messiah contains quite modest same day (March 19) as Handel’s advertisement Words are wanting to express the ex- bust, hits and flops. As recently as 1737, he had amounts of recycled or borrowed material only appeared, the Universal Spectator published a let- quisite Delight it afforded to the admir- suffered a sickening financial loss from the col- exacerbates commentarial befuddlement. Here ter signed with the pseudonym “Philalethes”— ing crouded Audience. The Sublime, lapse of an opera season in which he was a part- and there awkward scansion betrays a repur- i.e., lover of truth. the Grand, and the Tender, adapted to ner, followed by a “palsy” (probably a stroke) posed melody, such as “For unto us a Child is the most elevated, majestick, and mov- But it seems the Old Testament is not that left him temporarily without the use of his born”—originally “Nò, di voi non vo fidarmi,” ing Words, conspired to transport and to be prophan’d alone, nor God by the right hand. Showing his customary powers of a duet from a recent cantata. But on the whole, charm the ravished Heart and Ear. Name of Jehovah only, but the New recuperation, he not only regained his health Messiah is original work. So how did Handel must be join’d with it, and God by the but also his financial footing. Nothing seemed write it so quickly? Thus the Dublin Journal, snagging the honors most sacred the most merciful name to keep him down for long; Handel was tough, The answer is far simpler than one might of posting the very first of uncountable Messiah of Messiah; for I’m inform’d than an resilient, and supremely confident in his ability expect and has nothing to do with romantic reviews, on April 17, 1742. Another less formal Oratorio call’d by that Name has already to produce music that met public approval. notions of divine inspiration, sleep deprivation, appraisal came from the Reverend Dr.