In Our Time Handel's Messiah
Jennens Funded Handel And Kept His Work Private
- Charles Jennens was a wealthy, devout Anglican who privately funded Handel and collected his music obsessively.
- Ruth Smith describes Jennens' anonymous librettos, his massive Handel collection and his motive to support Handel rather than seek fame.
Jennens' Grief Shaped Messiah's Theme Of Comfort
- Jennens' personal losses and beliefs shaped the libretto's opening plea for comfort and its universal salvation theme.
- Ruth Smith links his brother's suicide and belief in divine right to the repeated messages of comfort and "all shall be saved."
Messiah Was Shaped By English Ballad Singers
- Handel's available singers in 1741 were not the elite Italian opera roster but English ballad-opera performers with simpler, declamatory styles.
- Larry Zazzo explains this influenced Messiah's vocal writing and led to versatile renderings by mezzo, countertenor or castrato later.
Misha Glenny and his guests discuss the most famous oratorio of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and his librettist Charles Jennens (1700-1773). For his libretto, Jennens drew from Old and New Testament texts: prophecies about the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the nativity, the suffering of Christ and his death and the Day of Judgement and redemption for all. Handel's Messiah had its premiere in 1742 in a secular Dublin music hall to great acclaim with a packed audience and Handel continued to adapt his Messiah for later performances, often shaping the work to the choirs or individual singers available. Messiah proved to be one of his most popular works, becoming a favourite of massed choirs around the world far beyond the scale of Handel’s original.
With
Donald Burrows Emeritus Professor of Music at the Open University
Ruth Smith Trustee and Council Member of the Handel Institute
And
Larry Zazzo Countertenor, and Senior Lecturer in Music at Newcastle University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Donald Burrows, Messiah (full score, 2 vols, Hallische Händel Ausgabe, forthcoming)
Donald Burrows, Messiah (Edition Peters, 1987)
Donald Burrows, Messiah, Cambridge Music Handbooks (Cambridge University Press, 1991)
Donald Burrows, Handel: Master Musicians series, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press, 2012)
George Frideric Handel (ed. Donald Burrows et al.), Collected Documents vol. 3 (1734-42), vol 4 (1742-50), (Cambridge University Press, 2019, 2020)
G.F. Handel, facsimile ‘Messiah’: the composer’s autograph manuscript (British Library, 2009)
G.F. Handel, facsimile the composer’s Conducting Score of Messiah (Scolar Press, 1974) Arthur Holroyd, Reassuring 18th-Century Protestants: The Librettist’s Intended Message for Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (Quacks Books, 2018)
Charles King, Every Valley: The Story of Handel’s Messiah (Doubleday/Bodley Head, 2024)
Jens Peter Larsen, Handel’s Messiah: Origins, Composition, Sources (Adam and Charles Black, 1957)
Richard Luckett, Handel’s Messiah: A Celebration (Victor Gollancz, 1992)
Watkins Shaw, A Textual and Historical Companion to Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (Novello and Co, 1965)
Ruth Smith, ‘The Achievements of Charles Jennens (1700–1773)’ (Music & Letters, 70, 1989)
Ruth Smith, Charles Jennens: The Man behind Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (Handel House Trust/The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation, 2012)
Ruth Smith, Handel’s Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1995)
Calvin R. Stapert, Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010)
Judy Tarling, Handel’s Messiah: A Rhetorical Guide (first published 2014; Punnett Press, 2025)
In Our Time is a BBC Studios production
Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.