Would you like an example of how highly George Frideric Handel's music is regarded in the world of serious musicians…and I mean, really serious musicians? Beethoven (how serious can you get?) was a great admirer of Handel, referring to him as "the greatest composer that ever lived." On his deathbed, the titanic German is reputed to have quoted from Messiah, stating that if there were a physician that could help him, "His name shall be called Wonderful." How's that for a kudo?

Messiah is far and away Handel's most popular work. Unlike the majority of his music, which was widely accepted during his lifetime and then fell into relative obscurity, this one masterwork has endured. For 260 years this most loved of oratorios has survived numerous revisions and reorchestrations, and through it all the work has retained its position as the most frequently performed example of its genre.

It is remarkable, then, to learn of the circumstances in which this masterpiece was composed. Handel was at the low ebb of his career in 1741, and was hardly likely to have penned such an enduring monument to faith. Ever since his arrival in England in 1712, he had enjoyed moderate success but had not had an easy time making financial ends meet. His insistence on writing not for the privileged classes but for the rising middle class masses had led him to the brink of financial ruin in twenty years. As Smith/Carlson put it, Handel "…was an inviting target for critics and for satire. He was a foreigner, and an individual no one could help noticing. He had large hands, large feet, a large appetite..." (Handel indeed struggled with his weight, a problem about which critics mercilessly teased him.) Creditors were at his door, he was depressed, he could not sleep, and he was plagued by rheumatism. He had recently suffered a minor stroke, resulting in a partial paralysis on his left side. If his fortunes did not change, and if he did not come up with a musical success soon, the fifty-six year old composer feared he would finish out his days in a London debtor's prison.

Handel received two significant letters that fateful summer that would change all that had gone wrong for him. The first was an invitation from the Duke of Devonshire, inviting him to Dublin to produce a series of benefit concerts. He quickly accepted, thinking that the change might do him good, and he was certainly eager to be out from under the persistent dun of his numerous creditors.

Shortly thereafter a second letter arrived, this one from Charles Jennens, a wealthy but somewhat eccentric English landowner who had in the past written occasional opera lyrics for Handel. Enclosed with Jennens' letter was a libretto, fashioned from texts of the English Bible, and exploring with great originality the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was full of passion, prophecy, tender moments, and soul-stirring outbursts of religious fervor. Robert Manson Myers wrote that, in the case of Jennens’ text, "for the first time in musical history the mighty drama of human redemption was treated as an epic poem." The libretto, wrote Henly Denmead, "…considers the whole human experience - hope and fulfillment, suffering and death, resurrection and redemption."

Handel resolved to set this remarkable text to music in sacred oratorio form, and feverishly threw himself into the task. He worked unceasingly for twenty-one (some sources say twenty-four) days and nights, ignoring meals, weeping as he worked, being moved to tears and open sobbing by the saga of Jesus' suffering. On the verge of exhaustion, he finished in September and took his finished oratorio with him to Dublin early in 1742, where he immediately put it into rehearsal. The first public presentation on April 13 of that year was a tremendous success, and though all the proceeds from that concert were contractually designated for charities, he nevertheless had guaranteed his future financial security with this one composition. What Handel achieved in Messiah was an elegant blend of virtuosic vocalism for the soloists and unmatched choral sonorities ranging from light to ceremonial. Across the span of 260 years, this masterpiece still holds its extraordinary grip on musician and audience member alike, bestowing on each of us the special gifts of both aesthetic and spiritual grace.

1. Orchestra: Overture

2. Tenor Solo: Comfort ye my people (recitative)

3. Tenor Solo: Every valley (aria)

4. Chorus: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed

5. Bass Solo: Thus saith the Lord (recitative)

6. Bass Solo: But who may abide the day of His coming (aria)

7. Chorus: And He shall purify

8. Alto Solo: Behold, a virgin shall conceive (recitative)

9. Alto Solo & Chorus: O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion (aria)

10. Bass Solo: For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth (recitative)

11. Bass Solo: The people that walked in darkness (aria)

12. Chorus: For unto us a Child is born

13. Orchestra Interlude: Pastoral Symphony

14. Soprano Solo: There were shepherds abiding in the field (recitative)

14a. Soprano Solo: And lo! The angel of the lord came upon them (recitative)

15. Soprano Solo: And the angel of the Lord said unto them, Fear not (recitative)

16. Soprano Solo: And suddenly there was with the angel (recitative)

17. Chorus: Glory to God

18. Soprano Solo: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion (aria)

19. Alto Solo: Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened (recitative)

20. Alto Solo & Soprano: He shall feed His flock like a shepherd (aria)

21. Chorus: His yoke is easy and His burthen is light

22. Chorus: Behold the Lamb of God

23. Alto Solo: He was despised and rejected of men (aria)

24. Chorus: Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows

25. Chorus: And with His stripes we are healed

26. Chorus: All we like sheep have gone astray

29. Tenor Solo: Thy rebuke hath broken His heart (recitative)

30. Tenor Solo: Behold, and see if there by any sorrow (aria)

31. Tenor Solo: He was cut off out of the land of the living (recitative)

32. Tenor Solo: But thou didst not leave His soul in hell (aria)

33. Chorus: Lift up your heads, O yea gates

36. Alto Solo: Thou art gone up on high (aria)

37. Chorus: The Lord Gave the Word

38. Soprano Solo: How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace (aria)

39. Chorus: Their sound is gone out into all the lands

40. Bass Solo: Why do the nations of furiously rage together?

41. Chorus: Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their yokes from us

42. Tenor Solo: He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn (recitative)

43. Tenor: Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron (aria)

44. Chorus: Hallelujah! For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!

46. Chorus: Since by Man Came Death

47. Bass: Behold, I tell you a mystery (recitative)

48. Bass: The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised (aria)

53. Chorus: Worthy is the Lamb

Sunday, February 3, 2002, 3:00 PM
Michael Kissinger, Conductor

SYMPHONY NO. 9 IN D MINOR

By Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

I love this job, I truly do! Writing program notes for these Bravo! Vancouver concerts is a genuine a joy, because I get to read, study, dig, investigate…all those things that curious people like myself love doing. But I have to tell you that this particular assignment presented me with an enormous challenge. Ludwig van Beethoven? Do you have any concept of how much material there is on this musical giant-of-the-ages? His life story truly is a wonderland of avenues and trails, each thoroughly explored and rich in drama. What part of the story, then, should I tell? His upbringing by a brutal father? His lifelong love story, so well detailed in the recent film Immortal Beloved? His personal tragedy of and triumph over deafness? His republican passions in the turbulence of the French Revolution and its aftermath? What about his music itself? So much to tell, and so little space!

Nonetheless, I did come across one anecdote that I must share with you, and perhaps this piece will then gain some sort of focus. Many of us have fresh memories of the "end of the Cold War" and of the Berlin Wall coming down in 1989. With awe we watched as freedom swept across Europe, half a million Berliners pouring across the newly opened border on that Christmas Eve alone. I, for one, was thrilled while watching and listening to a Leonard Bernstein-organized performance to proclaim the new era. Perhaps you also saw that satellite telecast of back-to-back East and West Berlin performances of-what else?-Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The massive concept of this symphony, its idealism, the thrill of massed forces proclaiming the glory of the human spirit to a war-weary international audience-this seems to be precisely what Beethoven had in mind when he wrote it. And what made that telecast so powerful? I have always thought that the high-water mark of Beethoven's career is the Choral Finale of Symphony No. 9. Though each of the symphony's movements is fascinating to a musical analyst, and has countless points of interest that may be discussed here, limitations of space lead me to focus on the choral last movement, an Ode to Joy, based on the poetry of Friedrich Schiller.

After the first two dramatic movements, and a third movement offering themes of repose, solemn fanfares give way to a lingering end at which neither the orchestra nor the music seem to take a breath. Beethoven immediately opens the fourth movement finale in a state of turmoil, offering tiny samples from each earlier movement in turn, but the grumbling cellos and basses apparently reject them all. Clearly they are struggling to say something else, something not already said, but they lack the words. Eventually they find a new tune in D major: this will be our theme.

Now once more Beethoven plunges us into turmoil, but this time a baritone boldly strides forward, interrupting all, and finally puts into words what the instruments were powerless to communicate: "O friends, not these tones! Let us raise our voices in more pleasing and more joyful sounds!" (It is interesting to note that these words are not the poet Schiller's, but Beethoven's own.) The master seems to have left the restrictions of classical orchestration and form behind, finding a new voice to speak an eternal longing. The music now earnestly swells with Schiller's stirring poetry, the inspiring Ode to Joy. The chorus enthusiastically enters the scene, and the solo quartet adds some strenuous variations. (Fascinatingly, for the 1989 Berlin telecast, Leonard Bernstein here substituted "Freiheit", meaning "freedom", for "Freude", translated as "joy." Some say that Schiller, before being censored by Austrian secret police, wrote "Freiheit" in the first place.)

All this is strongly in the key of D major, and well on track to the conventional modulation to A-major, when the master derails the entire company into a ditch by careening into F major instead, leaving us flattened and gasping. What could possibly come next?

Plunk. Plunk. Over the hill comes a scraggly Turkish military band, croaking out a three-legged march, and led by a swaggering tenor. The chorus falls in behind him, traveling through a half dozen keys, finally arriving at a noisy, full-throated reprise of the Ode theme. The next passage, in genuine homage to G.F. Handel, (whom Beethoven referred to as "the greatest composer that ever lived") is the most purely choral moment in the entire finale.

Gathering energy for the final surge, dramatic momentum is now regained with a rocking double

Fugue, and Beethoven, in complete mastery of the moment, engineers one wonderful surprise after another. With an unbelievable series of musical machinations, he whips and drives the massed forces toward a passionate and exultant climax, leaving us exhausted, yet utterly thrilled and cheering.

At the risk of becoming a bit sentimental and romantic, I cannot resist the temptation of closing these notes with the very last words of Schiller's ode, but here would suggest that they be applied to the spirit of the master, Beethoven, himself. The last two lines of the last stanza exhort us to: Seek Him above the starry firmament, for above the stars he surely dwells.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony #9

1. Allegro ma non troppo
2. Molto Vivace
3. Adagio molto e cantabile
4. Presto-Allegro assai

Program Notes by:
Richard A. Woolley

The Composer

As I was researching today's concert offering of the oratorio Elijah, I was somewhat surprised to learn that this piece has received a relatively insignificant amount of "hype" over the years. Surprisingly, at least to me, there were several biographical and critical studies that were rather reserved about the musical "place" of Mendelssohn himself. One referred to him as "one of the first of the great 19th-century Romantic composers, and a figure to be rediscovered." Another comments that his oratorio Elijah, "…has assumed a place of interest in the repertoire of major choral organizations, but rarely is programmed as a season highlight." I couldn't help but be surprised by such negative opinions of such a famous name in music.

Reading further, I learned that Felix Mendelssohn, as honored as he was during his brief but productive lifetime, was later subjected to scurrilous criticism and vicious anti-Semitism by writers and musicians alike during the second half of the nineteenth century. In fact, many European writers, even up to the years shortly before World War II, were still deprecating Mendelssohn and his music. It is only recently (since the mid-twentieth century) that the damage done by these unfortunately influential writers has begun to be slowly undone by more tolerant and enlightened musical commentators and historians.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was born in Hamburg, Germany, the grandson of a famous Jewish philosopher and son of a wealthy banker. The family took the name "Bartholdy" when they converted to Christianity, but Felix insisted on keeping both names. Much later in the century, as a wave of anti-Semitism swept through Europe, Mendelssohn and his music were soundly hammered by writers who held that no Jew could produce anything of true artistic worth. Mendelssohn belonged to that class of educated people in easy circumstances, another fact that accounted for much of the later criticism. A significant number of contemporary writers and critics seemed to hold that his music came too easily, that his personal life contained none of the strife and struggle that they deemed necessary to act as a crucible for true inspiration. This was very much in line with the "Romantic" spirit of the times Mendelssohn was a classical Romantic composer in that he used classical forms, but belonged, with Liszt and Chopin, to the composers of the new music coming from Europe, with its exciting virtuosity and exotic harmonies. In its day his music was held to be remarkable for its charm and elegance, and he soon became the most popular composer of early nineteenth century England. As a matter of fact, his main reputation was made in England, which, in the course of his short life, he visited no less than ten times. His style perfectly satisfied the British Romantics' love of contrasts in volume and color, and his achievements within the format of the sacred oratorio had an enormous appeal to the intensely religious and biblically intelligent middle and working classes. So, when Mendelssohn mounted the rostrum of Birmingham's Town Hall on August 26, 1846, to conduct the first performance of Elijah, success was assured. The Times wrote of the occasion: "Never was there a more complete triumph." From the daring harmonies of Thanks be to God to the anger of the mob in Woe unto Him, the audience enjoyed the huge chorus (271 voices!) and the mighty organ, happy in the knowledge that they were improving their minds and morals.

The Story of Elijah

The oratorio Elijah is both moving and dramatic. When he started planning this composition as early as 1836, Mendelssohn insisted that the story be told not by an epic narrative, as in the oratorios of Bach, but by the characters of the drama themselves. Accordingly, there is a tradition-shattering recitative even before the overture. At this very beginning of the oratorio, Elijah warns the people of Israel, who have turned away from Jehovah to the worship of Baal, of their coming punishment in the form of drought and famine. The people are now desperate for help. What are they to do? Who are they to worship? The theme of drought and God's price for deliverance takes up the first half of the oratorio, with two side plots demonstrating God's mercy and power. He shows his care by restoring to life the dead son of a widow, and promising that her food supply will not run out. He provides dramatic evidence of his power in a contest between Elijah and the priests of Baal, during which two sacrificial altars are built on Mount Carmel, and the two gods are invoked to ignite the pyres. The priests of Baal cry in vain (Baal, we cry to thee, No. 11). They become increasingly despairing, and Elijah taunts them: "Call him louder…he is on a journey…or perhaps he is asleep." Following their repeated failures, Elijah prays to Jehovah, calling down heavenly flames which consume the sacrificial bulls (Is not his word like a fire, No. 17), and the people's faith is restored. Elijah then exhorts the now penitent Israelites to fall on the priests of Baal and kill them all, an event that leads to his later persecution by the furious Queen Jezebel. In the next scene, Elijah sends a boy to the top of a hill to search for signs of the promised drought-ending rain. The first small cloud, a few early drops, and then the increasingly heavy downpour are masterfully depicted in the orchestration, and the people show their appreciation in a mighty chorus (Thanks be to God, No. 20). Having now saved Israel, Elijah is mercilessly persecuted by King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. The second half of the work opens with God's words of reassurance to his people. It focuses on the weary and despondent prophet in the wilderness, where he is assured of God's protection (O rest in the Lord, No. 31). God's revelation of Himself to Elijah, not in the earthquake, not in the mighty wind, but in the "still small voice," is poignant and dramatic. The exciting culmination of the drama, when God sends his "fiery chariot," drawn by "fiery, fiery horses," to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, is a simple yet effective use of Romantic musical imagery. The work closes with a fervent hymn of praise (And then shall your light break forth, No. 42).

Overture

1. Chorus "Help, Lord!"

Quartet "the deep affords no water"

2. Duet with Chorus "Zion spreadeth her hands for aid"

3. Recitative "Ye people, rend your hearts"

4. Air "If with all your hearts"

5. Chorus "Yet doth the Lord see it not!"

6. Recitative "Elijah! Get thee hence"

7. Double Quartet "For He shall give His angels

Recitative "Now Cherith’s brook is dried up"

8. Air "What have I to do with thee"

9. Chorus "Blessed are all they that fear Him"

10. Recitative "As God the Lord of Sabaoth liveth"

11. Chorus "Baal, answer us"

12. Recitative & Chorus "As God the Lord of Sabaoth liveth"

13. Recitative & Chorus "Call Him louder! He heareth not"

14. Air "Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel"

15. Quartet "Cast thy burden upon the Lord"

16. Recitative & Chorus "O Thou, who makest thine angels spirits"

17. Air "Is not His word like a fire?"

18. Air "woe unto them who forsake Him!"

19. Recitative & Chorus "O man of God, help thy people"

20. Chorus "Thanks be to God!"

21. Air "Hear ye, Israel!"

22. Chorus "Be not afraid"

23. Recitative & Chorus "the Lord hath exalted thee"

24. Chorus "Woe to him!"

25. Recitative "Man of God now let my words be precious"

26. Air "It is enough, O Lord"

27. Recitative "See, now he sleepeth"

28. Trio of Angels "Lift thine eyes"

29. Chorus "He, watching over Israel"

30. Recitative "Arise, Elijah"

31. Air "O rest in the Lord"

32. Chorus "He that shall endure to the end"

33. Recitative "Night falleth ‘round me"

34. Chorus "behold, God the Lord passed by!"

35. Recitative, Quartet & Chorus "Above him stood the seraphim"

36. Chorus "go, return upon they way"

37. Arioso "For the mountains shall depart"

38. Chorus "Thus did Elijah the prophet break forth"

39. Air "Then shall the righteous shine forth"

40. Recitative "For God sent his people the prophet Elijah"

41. Chorus "Thus saith the Lord"

42. Quartet "O come, everyone that thirsteth"

43. Chorus "And then shall your light break forth

(Program songs will be announced)

(Program songs will be announced)