CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS Saturday, December 10, 2011, 7pm Zellerbach Hall Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Nicholas McGegan, conductor Dominique Labelle, soprano Daniel Taylor, countertenor Thomas Cooley, tenor Nathaniel Watson, baritone Philharmonia Chorale Bruce Lamott, director PROGRAM George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Messiah, HWV 56 (1741) Part I INTERMISSION Part II PAUSE Part III This performance will be approximately three hours in length. This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Roger and Silvija Hoag. Cal Performances’ 2011–2012 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. CAL PERFORMANCES 23 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Handel’s Messiah Messiah is a child of the Enlightenment, that the very first section, drawn from the first five and Athalia in 1733, Alexander’s Feast and Ode revolutionary mindset that promoted reason verses of Isaiah 40, which Jennens structured as for St. Cecilia’s Day in 1736, Saul and Israel in rimo le parole, poi la musica: first the over unexamined belief, but Charles Jennens was recitative-aria-chorus, a formula that will repeat Egypt in 1739, and most recently 1740’s L’Allegro, Pwords, then the music. Ask a roomful of no Edward Gibbon, Thomas Paine or Thomas itself—sometimes with significant expansion— il Penseroso ed il Moderato, to texts adapted from people to identify the composer of Messiah, and Jefferson proclaiming a humanistic philosophy throughout the entire oratorio. John Milton by Charles Jennens. a roomful of hands will go up. Ask that same based on rational inquiry. Instead, he sought to Now it was Handel’s turn to clothe Jennens’s So it was a seasoned veteran who determined gathering to name the librettist, and puzzled si- defend his deeply felt and conservative Anglican masterful compilation with compelling and en- that Jennens’s new libretto would be ideal for a lence is likely to follow. To be sure, Messiah is Christianity against what he saw as intellec- tertaining music. He was more than up to the forthcoming Dublin concert series scheduled not a setting of a freshly written, original book; tual attacks on the core of the Christian mes- task. By 1741, George Frideric Handel was an to begin in late 1741. Handel started compos- the text is a compilation of passages from the sage. In July 1741, Jennens wrote to his friend English institution, resident for 30 years, citi- ing Messiah on August 22 and completed the Old and New Testaments. But that makes it no Edward Holdsworth: zen for the past 14 years, a robust (if not always manuscript on September 14—that’s 24 days, less impressive an achievement. The work of a Handel says he will do nothing next altogether healthy) man in his mid-50s. As a or three and a half weeks. Such speed has typi- perceptive and passionate writer, Messiah’s li- Winter, but I hope I shall perswade self-employed freelance musician, responsible cally left commentators nonplussed if not down- bretto is just as noteworthy in its own way as him to set another Scripture Collection to the dictates of the public rather than the right confounded: how could anybody write a George Frideric Handel’s immortal music. So I have made for him, & perform it for directives of courtly or clerical patrons, he had work of Messiah’s length in such an incredibly before that music, a look at those fine words— his own Benefit in Passion Week. I hope seen his full share of triumph and failure, boom short time? That Messiah contains quite modest and their curator—is very much in order. he will lay out his whole Genius & Skill and bust, hits and flops. As recently as 1737, he amounts of recycled or borrowed material only Charles Jennens’s palatial home at Gopsall, upon it, that the Composition may ex- had suffered a sickening financial loss from the exacerbates commentarial befuddlement. Here North West Leicestershire—near Bosworth cell all his former Compositions, as the collapse of an opera season in which he was a and there awkward scansion betrays a repur- Field, where the War of the Roses was conclu- Subject excells every other Subject. The partner, followed by a ‘palsy’ (probably a stroke) posed melody, such as “For unto us a Child is sively ended—was demolished in 1951 after Subject is Messiah. that left him temporarily without the use of his born”—originally “Nò, di voi non vo fidarmi,” years of neglect and abuse. Much the same can Jennens did indeed manage to “perswade” right hand. Showing his customary powers of a duet from a recent cantata. But on the whole, be said about Jennens himself: glamorous in his his eminent friend and colleague, but vic- recuperation, he not only regained his health Messiah is original work. So how did Handel day, his star faded rapidly and commentarial tory was tempered with disappointment, as but also his financial footing. Nothing seemed write it so quickly? wrecking balls gutted his posthumous reputa- we hear in another letter to Holdsworth, from to keep him down for long; Handel was tough, The answer is far simpler than one might tion. “Suleyman the Magnificent,” japed 18th- December 1741: resilient, and supremely confident in his ability expect and has nothing to do with romantic century Shakespeare scholar George Steevens. I heard with great pleasure at my ar- to produce music that met public approval. notions of divine inspiration, sleep deprivation, “A vain fool crazed by his wealth,” sniped rival in Town, that Handel had set the He had good reason for that confidence. As starvation or tearstained manuscripts. Handel Samuel Johnson. Oratorio of Messiah; but it was some far back as 1710, his first London visit had re- always composed quickly—speed is a basic sur- Prickly, prissy, snippy, snooty and wasp- mortification to me to hear that instead sulted in the blockbuster hit Rinaldo and, for de- vival skill for any hardworking theatrical com- ish, Jennens was manifestly not a man of the of performing it here he was gone to cades, he had produced a steady stream of Italian poser in any era—and Handel was nothing if people. But charges that he was an intellectual Ireland with it. However, I hope we shall operas in addition to a sizeable catalog of in- not a survivor. He was a past master at turning featherweight are unfounded. The sharpest hear it when he comes back. strumental music. His nontheatrical enterprises out yards upon yards of finished manuscript on barbs are products of Steevens’s malicious envy These letters reveal that Messiah represents a kept him afloat during the 1730s as the Italian schedule and to specification and, even consid- of Jennens’s classy Shakespeare editions and, as departure from Handel’s customary active and opera craze subsided, leaving Handel searching ering the unusual challenges posed by Messiah, such, deserve permanent retirement. Christopher collaborative relationship with his librettists, in- for another high-profit genre that could restore a libretto fundamentally unlike any he had ever Hogwood duly notes Jennens’s “self-importance cluding Jennens in previous projects such as Saul, his endangered fortunes. He didn’t have to look set before, three and a half weeks from start to and intolerance, the high-handed manner of a L’Allegro and (probably) Israel in Egypt. Handel very far: the oratorio stood ready to provide him finish is impressive but altogether believable. wealthy country gentleman, opinionated and apparently set the completed Messiah libretto as with the next stage in his career. He was no new- Speedy, yes; formulaic, no. Messiah is no cruel in his criticism, whose ostentation made handed to him, without the usual rounds of edi- comer to the genre: as far back as 1707, he had dutiful progression of recitatives followed by many of his contemporaries enemies.” But, he torial negotiations. That speaks well of Jennens’s written Il triunfo del Tempo e del Disinganno for arias but rather a skillful blend of vocal forms also points out Jennens’s many accomplish- literary skill, for his elegantly structured libretto his Roman patron Cardinal Pamphili, and the and genres, sometimes blurring the custom- ments, his educated taste, his passionate dedica- deserves a full share of the credit for Messiah’s flamboyant La Resurrezione the following year. ary boundaries between recitative, aria and tion to Handel’s music, his well-designed libretti perennial popularity. Jennens based his scrip- Early in his English residency, he wrote Acis and chorus. Throughout Messiah, Handel changes and his often splendid editorial advice—such as tural selections on both theological and musical Galatea and Esther for the Duke of Chandos. key, tempo, meter and mode as best serves the restoring an excised “Allelujah” to the Part I fi- considerations—Messiah is first and foremost an As the 1730s progressed, oratorios made up a text—such as the dramatic shifts throughout nale of Saul. oratorio libretto, not a religious tract. Consider steadily expanding share of his output: Deborah “But who may abide the day of his coming” in 24 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 25 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Part I. Saving the best for last, Handel treats the Horace Walpole on Handel’s preference for with charity proved to be the oratorio’s turning churches, community centers, concert halls concluding numbers—44 through 47—as one English soloists over Italian opera singers (“he point, as sellout crowds cheered. Handel would and high school gymnasiums; on records, on sustained movement, almost in the manner of a has hired all the goddesses from farces and the produce Messiah at both Covent Garden and the the radio, in movies, on TV, even on YouTube. recitative-free operatic finale.