Posted by Sigismund on January 8, 2010, at 23:54:19
In reply to Re: Lou's response-aydngrawrng, posted by Sigismund on January 8, 2010, at 23:29:32
That was a bit ratty, I think. This is better. Much more liquid. Sounds distorted, perhaps it's my crappy computer speakers? I am so deeply ambivalent about all this.
perhaps this helps
>n the summer of 1741 Handel, at the peak of his musical prowess but depressed and in debt, began setting Charles Jennens' Biblical libretto to music at his usual breakneck speed. In just 24 days, Messiah was complete (August 22 - September 14). Like many of Handel's compositions, it borrows liberally from earlier works, both his own and those of others. Tradition has it that Handel wrote the piece while staying as a guest at Jennens' country house (Gopsall Hall) in Leicestershire, England, although no evidence exists to confirm this.[2] It is thought that the work was completed inside a garden temple, the ruins of which have been preserved and can be visited.[3]>It was premiered during the following season, in the spring of 1742, as part of a series of charity concerts in Neal's Music Hall on Fishamble Street near Dublin's Temple Bar district. Right up to the day of the premiere, Messiah was troubled by production difficulties and last-minute rearrangements of the score, and the Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Jonathan Swift, placed some pressure on the premiere and had it cancelled entirely for a period. He demanded that it be retitled A Sacred Oratorio and that revenue from the concert be promised to local hospitals for the mentally ill.
I heard somewhere that Handel conducted it for nearly 20 years and gave the money from the performances to St Thomas's Children's Hospital, but I may have it wrong. Better than the Chairman of Goldman Sachs saying that he was doing God's work, at any rate.
poster:Sigismund
thread:926490
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20080809/msgs/932991.html