Handel's Messiah
Messiah in 53 Movements: Video and Commentary
Handel’s Messiah is an oratorio in three parts with 53 separate movements. Each movement is listed below with a link to where that movement begins in the performance by The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square with renowned guest soloists as streamed on Good Friday, April 10, 2020. (The original performance was at Easter in 2018.)
The commentary on each movement was written by Dr. Luke Howard, associate professor of Music History at Brigham Young University. The movement numbers correspond to those in the program found here and at TabChoir.org/Messiah.
Part II of Messiah opens with a funeral march, a reminder that the burden Christ bore was neither easy nor light.
As in the Overture, the dotted rhythms symbolize royalty, while the text refers to the Lamb of God. This juxtaposition of “King” and “Lamb” is the first of a number of sacred metaphorical paradoxes in the ensuing choruses—contrasts that reveal deeper truths about the Messiah’s sacrifice.
The descending melodic line is also a variation on “He Shall Feed His Flock / Come unto Him.”
The open-5th harmony at the end of this chorus symbolizes utter emptiness and desolation. It is the only place in Messiah that Handel employs this musical effect.
This is the longest musical selection in Messiah, placed at the exact midpoint of the work.
Handel also composed a version of this aria for soprano.
The sighing motifs in the orchestral accompaniment were a traditional baroque device for expressing pain and grief.
Relentless dotted rhythms in the middle section (sometimes omitted in performance) illustrate the mocks and whip lashes of Christ’s accusers.
The whip lashes from the previous aria return at the beginning and end of this chorus.
Intense chromaticism at the words “He was wounded for our transgressions” create a harmonic tension that corresponds to the emotional pain.
“And with His Stripes” is the first of only a small handful of choruses in Messiah in which the orchestral instruments simply double the voice parts. This is the original musical definition of a cappella style.
The first four notes in this chorus create a “cross motif,” an angular melodic shape that Bach used extensively in his own sacred music to symbolize the crucifixion.
There are 13 entries of the fugue theme in this “crucifixion” chorus, just as there are 13 statements of the ground bass in the “Crucifixus” from Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
Mozart borrowed this same four-note theme for the “Kyrie” from his Requiem Mass.
This music is freely adapted from the same Italian duet Handel used in “For unto Us A Child Is Born,’ with a similarly taunting text.
The musical motifs that seem here like text-painting on the words “astray” and “turned” were originally written to depict an escape from love’s entrapment.
The Adagio conclusion to this chorus was newly-composed for Messiah, and re-uses the same symbolic descending scale heard at the start of “Behold the Lamb of God.”
In this short recitative, the orchestral strings illustrate the words with three symbolic motifs: the dotted-note “whips,” a “laughing” figure, and the rocking neighbor-note motion that had earlier signified “darkness.”
Another a cappella chorus in which the orchestra doubles the voice parts.
The fugue form of this chorus enhances the drama with repeated taunting entries of “Let him deliver him.”
Intense chromaticism and unexpected chord progressions underscore the text’s expression of loneliness and distress.
As in Bach’s sacred works, it is the solo tenor that narrates the story of Christ’s crucifixion.
The breaking up of the text into short phrases is an imitation of weeping, lamenting, and sighs—a popular device in dramatic baroque music.
This brief recitative covers Christ’s crucifixion and death. It begins in B minor—the key of pain—but turns to E major even before the crucifixion text is complete, foreshadowing the hope of the resurrection.
Christ’s resurrection takes place in the quiet space between the preceding recitative and this joyful aria.
Handel divides the choral sopranos to help create the effect of a double chorus in this back-and-forth dialog of questions and answers.
The plagal cadence at the end of this chorus repeats the formula previously heard in the opening chorus, “And the Glory of the Lord.” It consolidates the musical association of this cadence with God’s glory.
D major was favored key in the baroque period for rejoicing.
The main fugue theme is in the style of a trumpet fanfare.
This aria is both intensely chromatic and joyful—an odd juxtaposition, but one that is called for by the text itself.
The optimistic rising line on “Thou art gone up” is a simple case of text-painting, but it takes place over a descending “baroque lament” bass line.
This tension between victory and death illustrates the doctrine that Christ’s resurrection provides the gift of life “yea even for [His] enemies.”
Handel wrote four versions of this aria: one for bass, two different versions for alto, and one for soprano.
The majestic statement that opens this chorus is written in similar sturdy rhythms and steady melodic contours as other divine pronouncements in Handel’s music.
The embellished 16th-note runs in this chorus symbolize the proliferation of preachers willing to spread Christ’s gospel.
Handel originally combined this aria and “Their Sound Is Gone Out” into a single soprano aria. Later he separated them into an aria and chorus, but continued to experiment with numerous other permutations of solo and chorus.
The aria’s Siciliano rhythm again symbolizes peace and pastoral rest, as it had in the Pastoral Symphony.
Handel originally set this text as a tenor recitative, and only later turned it into a chorus.
Rapid entries in this fugal chorus exemplify the global dissemination of God’s word.
The wide melodic range for the words “unto the ends of the world” illustrates the gamut of the gospel’s reach. (“Gamut,” by the way, was originally a medieval musical term that referred to the complete range of a musical scale.)
For one performance, Handel added another choral section setting the text “Break forth into joy.”
This is the first text in Handel’s Messiah to explicitly reference the “anointed [one],” the literal translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah.”
Agitated string figures in this aria represent the anger of those whose power and influence are threatened by Christ’s gospel.
The fragmented impressions of rage and vain imaginations are expressed in cross-rhythms—the solo voice singing triplet rhythms over duplets in the accompaniment.
In one of Handel’s versions of the score, the middle section (“The kings of the earth rise up”) was set as a recitative instead of a section of an aria.
The jagged, angular theme, closely-spaced vocal entries, and frequent rhythmic syncopations in this fugue illustrate the wanton demolition of faith spoken of in the text.
Using many of the same musical effects as the previous chorus, this aria manifests that is the Lord who will destroy the plans of the wicked, not the other way around.
Very wide leaps in the strings and fragmentary, disjunct motion depicts the Lord breaking into shards and dashing to pieces the disruptive strategies of the faithless.
One of Handel’s alternate versions of Messiah has the tenor sing this same text in recitative.
The tradition of standing for the “Hallelujah” chorus began in the 18th century. But there is little direct evidence—only distantly-remembered anecdotes—to connect it to King George II standing during a performance of Messiah.
The key of D major here, as in other places in Messiah, is a key of triumph and celebration. It was the easiest key for baroque trumpets to play, and so became associated with victory fanfares.
The victory celebrated in this chorus is a spiritual victory over the worldly politics of nations and governments.
The fugue theme at the words “And He shall reign” is remarkably similar to the cross-motif in the chorus “And with His Stripes.”
The same plagal cadence that has signified “glory” in so many other places in Messiah ends the “Hallelujah” chorus with a musical representation of glory.