Handel's Messiah: Comfort for God's People (Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies) - Softcover

Stapert, Calvin R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802865879 ISBN 13: 9780802865878

Verlag: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010

Inhaltsangabe

If you want to enjoy and appreciate Handel's beloved Messiah more deeply, this informed yet accessible guide is the book to read. Here you will find fascinating historical background to Messiah, including its unlikely inception, and learn about its reception and impact from Handel's day to our own. Calvin Stapert devotes most of his book to scene-by-scene musical and theological commentary on the entire score, demonstrating how the music of Messiah beautifully intertwines with and illuminates its biblical text. Through these pages Handel's popular and much-loved masterpiece will be greatly enhanced for listeners old and new alike.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Calvin R. Stapert is professor emeritus of music at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. His previous books include My Only Comfort: Death, Deliverance, and Discipleship in the Music of Bach; Handel's Messiah: Comfort for God's People; and A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church.

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Handel's Messiah

Comfort for God's PeopleBy Calvin R. Stapert

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Copyright © 2010 Calvin R. Stapert
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8028-6587-8

Contents

Illustrations........................................................................xPreface..............................................................................xi1. Oratorio before Handel............................................................3Oratorio in Italy, the Land of Its Birth.............................................3Oratorio in Handel's Native Germany..................................................9Oratorio in England before Handel....................................................112. Handel............................................................................12Handel before Oratorio in England....................................................12Handel and the Origin of Oratorio in England.........................................283. Messiah...........................................................................37Messiah during Handel's Lifetime.....................................................37Messiah after Handel's Death.........................................................514. To Teach and Delight..............................................................655. Messiah versus Deism..............................................................726. Before We Begin...................................................................81Some General Musical Considerations..................................................81Mottoes..............................................................................847. Part the First: The Coming of the Messiah.........................................87Scene 1..............................................................................89Scene 2..............................................................................92Scene 3, section 1...................................................................97Scene 3, section 2...................................................................98Scene 4..............................................................................100Scene 5..............................................................................1048. Part the Second: Lamb of God, King of Kings.......................................108Scene 1, prologue....................................................................110Scene 1, section 1...................................................................111Scene 1, section 2...................................................................114Scene 2..............................................................................118Scene 3..............................................................................121Scene 4..............................................................................123Scene 5..............................................................................124Scene 6..............................................................................127Scene 7..............................................................................129Scene 8..............................................................................1349. Part the Third: Resurrection of the Dead, Worship of the Lamb.....................140Scene 1..............................................................................141Scene 2..............................................................................144Scene 3..............................................................................145Scene 4..............................................................................147Glossary.............................................................................153Notes................................................................................157A List of Works Cited................................................................165Credits..............................................................................169Index................................................................................170

Chapter One

Oratorio before Handel

Oratorio in Italy, the Land of Its Birth

A "polite assembly" crowded into Dublin's music hall in Fishamble Street on 10 April 1742 for a public rehearsal of an upcoming concert. Those attending the rehearsal had tickets for the formal concert scheduled for two days later, but their tickets entitled them to attend the rehearsal also. The concert was postponed one day to 13 April because certain "persons of distinction" so desired. Despite the postponement and the fact that many had already heard the rehearsal, an estimated seven hundred people shoehorned themselves into the six hundred-seat music hall. (Obviously, the ladies and gentlemen heeded the request of the advertisements to come without skirt hoops and swords.) Thus began the remarkable history of one of the most well-received works in the annals of music. But no less remarkable than the initial reception of the work advertised as "Mr. Handel's new Grand Oratorio, call'd the MESSIAH" is the unlikely series of events that led to its composition.

Oratorio is a difficult genre to define. Handel scholar Winton Dean said, "It is almost impossible to define it without excluding famous works that go or have gone in the catalogue of oratorios." But all oratorios have one element in common. Like operas, they are dramatic stories entirely set to music for vocal soloists, chorus, and instruments. But unlike operas, they do not usually include acting, costumes, and stage props. Also unlike opera, oratorios usually tell sacred stories drawn from the Old Testament or lives of early Christian saints.

Both opera and oratorio originated and developed in Italy during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods in music history (roughly the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries), a time of increasing interest in setting dramatic texts to music. That interest gave rise to the "invention" of opera at the turn of the seventeenth century, and oratorio, opera's sacred counterpart, followed in its wake. The same musical styles and techniques that early seventeenth-century opera composers developed for telling the stories of heroes of ancient mythology and history became used in oratorio to tell the stories of early Christian saints and biblical characters, especially heroic figures from the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, such as Samson, Deborah, Susanna, and Judas Maccabeus.

The earliest such works came to be called oratorios because they were performed in oratories, or prayer halls, that developed out of a devotional movement led by St. Philip Neri (1515-1595) during the Catholic Counter Reformation. The meetings he instigated in the 1550s were at first small and informal. A few men met to pray, to discuss spiritual matters, and, since Neri considered singing an important spiritual exercise, to sing. These meetings soon became popular. Increasing attendance necessitated larger meeting places — oratories that could hold a few hundred people. The meetings developed into devotional and instructional services for the laity that included sermons preached in the vernacular.

Music continued to be an important part of the proceedings. Much of it came from the repertory of laude, simple religious songs in the vernacular whose origins go back to the penitential fervor that swept Italy in the last half of the thirteenth century, prompted to a large extent by the activity of St. Francis of Assisi and his...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0802865879
• ISBN 13: 9780802865878
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 187
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland