Handel’s Messiah
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.
→ Listen on BBC Sounds website
Guests
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Donald Burrows No other episodes
Emeritus Professor of Music at the Open University -
Ruth Smith No other episodes
Trustee and Council Member of the Handel Institute -
Larry Zazzo No other episodes
Senior Lecturer in Music at Newcastle University
Reading list
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Messiah (full score, 2 vols, Hallische Handel Ausgabe, forthcoming)
Donald Burrows -
Messiah
Donald Burrows (Edition Peters, 1987) -
Messiah, Cambridge Music Handbooks
Donald Burrows (Cambridge University Press, 1991) Google Books → -
Handel: Master Musicians series, 2nd edition
Donald Burrows (Oxford University Press, 2012) Google Books → -
Collected Documents vol. 3 (1734-42), vol 4 (1742-50)
George Frideric Handel (ed. Donald Burrows et al.) (Cambridge University Press, 2019, 2020) -
facsimile 'Messiah': the composer's autograph manuscript
G.F. Handel (British Library, 2009) -
facsimile the composer's Conducting Score of Messiah
G.F. Handel (Scolar Press, 1974) -
Reassuring 18th-Century Protestants: The Librettist's Intended Message for Handel's 'Messiah'
Arthur Holroyd (Quacks Books, 2018) Google Books → -
Every Valley: The Story of Handel's Messiah
Charles King (Doubleday/Bodley Head, 2024) -
Handel's Messiah: Origins, Composition, Sources
Jens Peter Larsen (Adam and Charles Black, 1957) Google Books → -
Handel's Messiah: A Celebration
Richard Luckett (Victor Gollancz, 1992) Google Books → -
A Textual and Historical Companion to Handel's 'Messiah'
Watkins Shaw (Novello and Co, 1965) Google Books → -
'The Achievements of Charles Jennens (1700-1773)'
Ruth Smith (Music & Letters, 1989) -
Charles Jennens: The Man behind Handel's 'Messiah'
Ruth Smith (Handel House Trust/The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation, 2012) Google Books → -
Handel's Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought
Ruth Smith (Cambridge University Press, 1995) Google Books → -
Handel's Messiah: Comfort for God's People
Calvin R. Stapert (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010) Google Books → -
Handel's Messiah: A Rhetorical Guide
Judy Tarling (Punnett Press, 2025) Google Books →
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Programme ID: m002tptk
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002tptk
Auto-category: 782.23 (Oratorios)