fits & starts: after Handel

SATB, a cappella

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the second movement of George Frideric Handel’s 1741 masterwork, Messiah. It is—without question—my favorite movement, but, as a baritone, there was never going to be a chance that I’d get to perform it myself. So, relegated to the bass section during the half dozen times I’ve participated in productions of Messiah, I got to sit back and listen to the fascinating way that Handel sets the scene for what’s to come in the next few hours of music. He does this by sort of creating the feeling of the stoppage (or slowing) of time and this is, I think, because he was a master of the English-language oratorio (a genre which he helped invent).

The “Comfort ye” movement is technically a recitativo accompagnato (in that it uses orchestra), but Handel flirts with some elements of the more speech-like recitativo secco and lyrical arias as well. This fluidity between metered tempi, rapid-fire speech, and moments for the tenor to draw out creates that push and pull which has fascinated me over the 25 years I’ve known the choral warhorse that is Messiah. Sometimes you’re moving forward; sometimes you’re held hovering in the air. Hence, the title (and all the tempo changes).

fits & starts: after Handel was commissioned by The Singers—Minnesota Choral Artists and Artistic Director, Dr. Matthew Culloton, in great thanks for the service of the organization’s Board President, Allie Tunseth Lundgren (to whom the composer is also indebted for her years of friendship and laughter). It received its premiere on December 8, 2024.

Note: fits & starts: after Handel can be performed with another Handel “deconstruction I did as a two-movement work called Two (new) Choruses from Messiah.

The Text

From the Bible (Isaiah 40: 1-3)

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God;
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her,
that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness;
prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Bonus

And, just to prove my choral cred a bit, below are some pictures I took during a 2022 trip to Dublin where I made a brief pilgrimage to Fishamble Street to visit the former sit of the Great Music Hall, where Handel premiered Messiah in 1742 in order to benefit The Charitable and Musical Society for the Release of Imprisoned Debtors. By 2015, the only remaining structure was the two-story entrance arch which, at the time, was being used as a gateway to the courtyard of an apartment complex.

fits & starts: after Handel

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