September 14, 1741 - Handel Completes Score for Messiah
George Frideric Handel, autograph manuscript of Messiah, “And He shall reign for ever and ever,” 1741. Public Domain. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Few works of Christian music are as immediately recognizable as George Frideric Handel’s Messiah. Its famous “Hallelujah” chorus has been performed in churches, concert halls, royal celebrations, and community productions for generations. Yet the chorus is only one part of a much larger work constructed almost entirely from Scripture. On September 14, 1741, Handel completed the score after an extraordinary period of composition lasting only twenty-four days.
George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, in present-day Germany, in 1685. After developing his career on the European continent, he settled permanently in England and became one of the leading composers of his generation. Much of his early fame in London came from Italian opera, but changing public tastes and the enormous expense of theatrical productions eventually made the operatic world increasingly difficult. Handel consequently devoted more attention to the English-language oratorio—a large musical composition for singers, chorus, and orchestra presented without the scenery and theatrical staging associated with opera.
The words of Messiah were not written by Handel. They were assembled by Charles Jennens, an English landowner, literary patron, and longtime collaborator with the composer. Jennens created what was sometimes called a “Scripture collection,” arranging biblical passages into a sustained presentation of the Christian understanding of Jesus as the promised Messiah.
One of the most striking features of Messiah is how heavily Jennens relied upon the Old Testament. Rather than beginning with the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth, Messiah begins with the Hebrew prophets. The opening words, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” come from Isaiah 40. They are followed by Isaiah’s declaration that “Every valley shall be exalted.” As the work progresses, Jennens repeatedly returns to Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive,” “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light,” and the celebrated “For unto us a child is born.”
Isaiah is the dominant prophetic voice in Messiah, but Jennens also drew from Psalms, Haggai, Malachi, Zechariah, and other Old Testament books. His selection reflected the longstanding Christian practice of reading portions of the Hebrew Scriptures as prophecies or anticipations of Jesus Christ. In Messiah, therefore, the Old Testament is not merely introductory material. It provides much of the framework through which the entire story is presented.
Jennens returned especially to Isaiah 53 when the work turned toward Christ’s suffering. “He was despised and rejected of men,” “Surely he hath borne our griefs,” and “With his stripes we are healed” all come from Isaiah’s description of the suffering servant. Christians had interpreted these passages in relation to the suffering and death of Jesus since the earliest centuries of Christianity. Jennens placed that traditional interpretation at the heart of Messiah.
Handel began setting Jennens’s collection to music on August 22, 1741. His surviving manuscript documents the remarkable speed of the process. He completed the initial draft of Part I by August 28, Part II by September 6, and Part III by September 12. After approximately two additional days completing orchestral and other details, Handel marked the work finished on September 14.
Later accounts have embellished the story of those twenty-four days. Handel had suffered a serious health crisis, sometimes described as a stroke or paralysis, but that occurred in 1737—four years before he composed Messiah. Stories that coffee enabled him to complete the work are also difficult to substantiate. And while the speed of composition was extraordinary, Handel’s surviving manuscript contains corrections, deletions, and revisions rather than being the virtually error-free manuscript sometimes described in popular accounts.
The completed Messiah consists of three broad sections. Part I emphasizes biblical prophecy and the coming of Christ. Part II moves through Christ’s suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and the spread of the gospel. Part III focuses on resurrection, judgment, and eternal life. Jennens therefore constructed a biblical progression from Old Testament expectation to New Testament fulfillment and finally to the imagery of Revelation.
The famous “Hallelujah” chorus appears near the end of Part II rather than at the conclusion of the entire work. Its words come principally from the book of Revelation: “Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth,” “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ,” and “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.” Messiah then continues into Part III, eventually concluding with the imagery of Revelation 5: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.”
The first public performance took place in Dublin on April 13, 1742. Handel later introduced Messiah to London and continued revising and performing it throughout his lifetime. Beginning in 1750, he also conducted performances to benefit London’s Foundling Hospital, helping establish a lasting connection between the oratorio and charitable work.
By Handel’s death in 1759, Messiah had become one of the defining compositions of his career. In subsequent generations, churches, choral societies, and professional ensembles carried it far beyond eighteenth-century Britain. Its biblical text and treatment of Christ made it especially adaptable to Christian settings, even as it remained a major work of the concert repertoire.
Why It Matters
Messiah transformed a carefully arranged collection of biblical passages—especially texts from Isaiah and other Old Testament books—into one of the most enduring works of Christian sacred music. Its structure preserves an important feature of historic Christian biblical interpretation: reading the Old Testament promises and prophecies in relation to Christ and connecting them with the New Testament accounts of his life, death, resurrection, and ultimate reign. More than 280 years after Handel completed the score on September 14, 1741, that combination of Scripture and music remains central to the work’s continuing place in Christian and musical history.
