Accompagnato (Tenor) – “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Note: The text was set by Handel and differ from the King Jame’s Version in various places. Below, you can view the lyrics that make up this extraordinary piece of Scripture set to music. For your own copy of the 2-disc collection, I recommend you get a copy from Haven here. Handel’s Messiah captures the deep emotion of the story of our redemption. When he got to the Hallelujah chorus, his assistant found him in tears, saying, “I think I did see heaven open, and the very face of God.”
He barely ate or slept he was completely engulfed in the creation of this music-and he wasn’t alone. When it was finished he took it to his friend, the great composer, George Handel.įor 18 months the libretto sat on Handel’s shelf gathering dust until one day he took it down, dusted it off, and in three intense weeks, shut up in his flat on Brook Street, composed the oratorio that made the words come alive. This libretto was made up entirely of Old and New Testament texts combined to present the entire Christian message in a single piece. He believed that putting the gospel to music would communicate its truth, not just intellectually, but at a deep heart level.
In a time of rising secularism and humanism in England, Jennens was a member of the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel” and a passionate evangelical believer. She explained that the lyrics (the libretto) were not written by Handel himself, but that they are simply Scripture texts arranged by Handel’s friend, Charles Jennens. Ruth Smith, a Cambridge scholar on Handel. Back in 2015, I visited Handel’s home in London to see the rooms where he composed.
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