Messiah and Me

Handel's Messiah.  Both disdained for its popularity and loved for its beauty by musicians, it is a rite of passage for singers. I've had a fun and lucky history with it, going back nearly 40 years.  My first meeting with it was singing "And the Glory of the Lord" at Christmas Vespers at Lafayette College in Colton Chapel in 1980.  Another bass, Juan Jarrett, and I danced away in the back row as we sang, drawing joking ridicule from friends in the audience.  My next meeting with Messiah was on a larger scale, four years later at Washington National Cathedral, with 300 singers (the Maryland Chorus and the Cathedral Choral Society), 100 baroque instrumentalists (the Smithsonian Concerto Grosso), soloists from Germany, England, Norway, and Finland, all under the direction of the former conductor of the National Symphony, Antal Dorati.  The performances were a bicentennial recreation of a 1785 performance at Westminster Abbey to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Handel's birth.  The CD recording came out just in time for Handel's 300th birthday (it was the first CD I sang on).

A year later I sang it for the first time with a professional choir as a chorister at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception with Leo Nestor directing.  At that time I was amazed I could get paid to sing.  After moving away to teach and later go back to school to study music, I returned to DC in 1996 and that year sang Messiah with the National Symphony with guest conductor and baroque music guru Nicholas McGegan when I was a professional chorister with the Washington Bach Consort.  I did another performance at the Kennedy Center a couple years later with the Washington Chamber Symphony with Stephen Simon.  I later joined the choir at Washington National Cathedral and sang it there at Christmas time for half a dozen years, under direction of Douglas Major, James Litton (who borrowed my conductor's baton, accidentally broke it, and repaired it with glue and wite-out before returning it), and Michael McCarthy, the current director of music there.  I even wrote the program notes for the Cathedral concerts which were used for several years after I left (included at the bottom)

Though I enjoy learning pieces new to me, I still enjoy singing the choruses in Messiah, some more than others.  Once learned, they are easy to recall, which is part of why Messiah sing-a-longs are so popular.  Over the years I've sung assorted movements as part of church services or preludes.  Every time I have sung the work, even as a professional, I have been a chorister, not a soloist.  From my very first time, my favorite bass arias were "Thus Saith the Lord" in the first part and "Why do the Nations..." in the second part.  But as far as the solos were concerned, I was always a bridesmaid chorister, never a soloist bride.  I frankly thought I'd never get a chance to sing any of the solos from the oratorio.  And I have had fewer and fewer singing opportunities the last 10 years or so as some ensembles I have sung with have gone under and others have let me go as stronger singers appear and my voice loses some of its strength.

In 2018 I rejoined the choir at St. Peter's Catholic Church on Capitol Hill as bass section leader, a position I held a couple decades ago before joining the choir at the Cathedral.  In September the director Kevin O'Brien, whose teacher and mentor was Leo Nestor, told the choir we'd be singing Messiah in December.  After rehearsal he asked me how I was on "Thus said the Lord" and "Why do the Nations..."  I said I'd look them over.

"Look them over."  I'd never sung them.  So I had to learn them.  After practicing some on my own, Kevin and I ran through them in the choir room on the piano one afternoon before rehearsal.  Even after that and practicing at home and even in the car or walking down the street, I was somewhat terrified when I ran through them with the orchestra the afternoon of the performance.  I was still a bit nervous as we assembled in the church for the concert.  As we sang the chorus "And the Glory of the Lord" which precedes my first solo, I started to calm down a little.  I got through "Thus saith the Lord," even enjoyed it.  The Pifa movement which followed a couple movements later gave me a profound--almost caressing--feeling of peace and, frankly, love.  

When the time came for "Why do the Nations..." I stepped up behind the orchestra.  When we rehearsed it with the orchestra that afternoon, Kevin had conducted at a brisk tempo, but said at the end, "I ran it fast there for time here.  We'll do it slower, but can you do it that fast?"  I said sure.  So when the movement started, his tempo was every bit as fast, perhaps faster than before.  I said "Shit" under my breath.  But then I thought, "Oh, hell, let's go for it."  I tore through the aria, hitting the high E's as if they were nothing and ripping through the triplet melismas.  The aria segued directly into the next chorus and when we sat down for the following aria, I was hugely relieved.  With the solos behind me, I was able to let loose on the remaining choruses, though, as has been my tradition for decades, I was unable to sing all of the last page of the "Amen" chorus at the end, as I always find the movement overwhelming when actually performing it.

So, almost 40 years after making acquaintance with Handel's Messiah, on basically the tail end of my career as a singer, I had the great luck to finally meet a couple of its solos.  Even after a couple drinks and dinner at Mr. Henry's afterwards with Robin, I had trouble going to sleep.  As I lay in bed, in addition to the post-performance elation, I considered a tension that I've felt in my musical life as well as my day job career.  On one hand, I enjoy being a part of an excellent musical organization, of being a weak singer compared to my colleagues, because I know if I'm the weak link, the quality of the whole must be pretty good.  On the other hand, I like making a difference, helping make something better than it would have been without me.  So singing with a group of volunteers is fun too.  The bass singing next to me in the choir had never sung Messiah before.  That reminded me that I too had my first time with Messiah almost three dozen years ago.  Perhaps that is what makes it timeless, being passed down generation to generation among singers and audiences.

And writing a couple months later, I still feel lucky to have had the chance to have sung it in the past, to sing it again, and to finally cross over to the smaller world of Messiah soloists.  A dear friend in the choir who set up microphones to record the concert sent me mp3s of me singing the solos.  I am not a bass, so hearing a baritone sing the arias was jarring.  And I'm not a $1000+ soloist, which is what I'm used to hearing sing the solos.  But I wasn't awful (fortunately St. Peter's Church's acoustics are very kind, plus having a little orchestra is nice as well).  With some trepidation should other musicians listen, I finally include links to the recordings on Soundcloud.

Thus saith the Lord sound file (click)

Why do the Nations sound file (click)

I've always attempted to try new things, whether it's careers/jobs, hobbies, travel.  Sometimes trying new things is a challenge as I have gotten older, because of both my own fears and other people's wariness of a dabbler.   So singing these were a real treat for me. 

Thanks, George, for writing such a beautiful piece of music that I have been very lucky to enjoy in various ways my whole adult life.

My program notes from the Cathedral concerts:

“The Sublime, the Grand, and the Tender”

“On Tuesday last Mr. Handel’s Sacred Grand Oratorio, the MESSIAH, was performed at the New Musick-Hall in Fishamble-street; the best Judges allowed it to be the most finished piece of Musick. Words are wanting to express the exquisite Delight it afforded to the admiring crouded Audience. The Sublime, the Grand, and the Tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestick and moving Words composed to transport and charm the ravished Heart and Ear.”

With those words written in 1742, a now forgotten reporter for the Dublin Journal scooped music critics and program annotators for two and a half centuries.  Performed today everywhere—on street-corners, storefront churches and cathedrals—by street buskers, gospel choirs, and symphony orchestras, Messiah is one of the most popular works of music ever written. 

George Frederick Handel had turned to writing oratorios in 1738 when the market for operas in the theaters of England had begun to wane.  His oratorios were essentially operas without acting or scenery with a stronger emphasis on choruses. 

A wealthy eccentric, Charles Jennens, had written the texts for several of Handel’s works and, like Handel, noted the popularity of biblical subjects with audiences.  In the spring of 1741, he sent Handel the libretto to Messiah, urging him to set the texts to music for use in the week of Easter.  An invitation from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to present a series of concerts in Dublin to benefit local charities gave Handel the incentive to write the music to Jennens’ text.  He began on August 22, 1741 and completed the work on September 14–fast work even for Handel.

Handel’s experience with theater is apparent in the music he composed.  The character of the choruses range from the exultant “For unto us a child is born” to the mocking “He trusted in God,” while the dramatic range of the arias span from the triumphant “The trumpet shall sound” to the sorrowful “He was despised.”  Few creations by artists have compared with the “Hallelujah” chorus in expressing overwhelming joy.

The first performance was at the New Music Hall on Fishamble Street in Dublin on April 13, 1742.  The chorus consisted of the Vicars Choral and twenty-six boys from the choirs of Christ Church Cathedral and St Patrick’s Cathedral, despite reservations of the Dean of St. Patrick’s, the satirist Jonathan Swift, about having the men “assist to a club of fiddlers on Fishamble Street.” 

The concert was so successful that it was repeated on June 3, 1742.  The enthusiasm for the work encouraged one of the Bishops of Ireland, Dr. Edward Synge, to suggest Handel write a sequel, The Penitent.  Though typically receptive to opportunities that might be lucrative, Handel fortunately declined.  

Few works of music are as flexible to perform.  On one extreme, for the famous celebration at Westminster Abbey in 1784 of the 25th anniversary of his death, an orchestra of 275 players and a choir of 248 singers gathered to perform Messiah.  Tonight’s concert forces are more akin to those of the first Dublin performance or those at the Foundling Hospital Chapel in London, where performances included a choir of six boys and thirteen men, with an orchestra of thirty-eight.

In Handel’s lifetime, Messiah, with its tale of Christ’s birth, passion, and resurrection, was typically performed near Easter. In the United States, it was first performed in its entirety in 1818 by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston on Christmas Eve.  Thus began Messiah’s link with Christmas traditions in the United States.  Tonight’s concert combines the musical tradition begun in Dublin with the holiday tradition begun in Boston. It is now time to stop reading and to listen to the “most elevated, majestick and moving Words composed to transport and charm the ravished Heart and Ear.”

Stephen Pearcy