Handel's "Messiah"

Last Sunday I went to see a performance of Handel's Messiah at Willammette. The performance was really incredible and it made me think about some of the things we have been learning about in the Romanowski book about high and popular art.

In one of the last chapters Romanowski said that all high art was once popular art. I didn't realize the "Messiah" fit this description perfectly until I learned a little more about it. The program posed the question of why Handel's Messiah had become so popular when other composer's religious pieces had sunk into obscurity (...like have any of you even heard of "St. Matthew's Passion" by Bach??...didn't think so). The answer it gave was that Handel wrote "Messiah" in the style of the popular theater of the day rather than the sacred style. The program said., "it was created to provide pleasure and entertainment, and if it managed to tuck a bit of spiritual renewal into the mix, so much the better. The theatricality that caused much clerical consternation in the early 1700's has proven to be Messiah's greatest strength in the long run." I thought this was a really amazing insight. When we hear the Hallelujah chorus now days it sounds about as holy as music can get, but in Handel's day what he was doing was actually quite scandalous. His use of percussion and dramatic vocalization was much more akin to opera (which was as scandalous to some Christians then as movie theaters were to many Christians 70 years ago) than Church music.

Just some food for thought.....