We know almost nothing about Handel's personal and private life – which is surprising given he was one of the most famous men in England during his lifetime. Was Handel a religious man? We haven't the faintest idea. Handel wept while he composed the Hallelujah Chorus and claimed he saw visions of angels while he worked on the piece. The choruses "And He Shall Purify," "For Unto Us a Child Is Born" and "His Yoke Is Easy" were all lifted from little Italian love arias Handel had composed 20 years earlier.Ĥ. However, he did help himself to parts of earlier compositions he had written years before. Handel composed the piece in a white-hot frenzy of creativity in July and August of 1741 (and then wrote his oratorio Samson in the following three weeks). Handel wrote the entire three-hour work in 18 days. It was the Imperial-mad Victorians in the late nineteenth century who filled the Crystal Palace with thousands of singers and hundreds of musicians, completely distorting everything Handel had written - and making for a long evening.Īt the lugubrious pace you had to take to get 5,000 singers to navigate Handel's choruses, a single performance could take five hours (complete with a dinner break).ģ. Handel's orchestra and choir was pretty small, maybe 20 musicians and 15 singers. In 2013, the Flin Flon Community Choir was invited to perform Handel's Messiah in New York City.
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