The Rest of HisStory - Hallelujah

Handel's Messiah

Beautiful music! Powerful message! There was a time when I could actually sing through Messiah. Did several performances when I was younger. I don't know if I could sing it at this point. Not because the music is challenging - that's just the way I like it. Because just hearing the Spirit's words set to such amazing music keeps me in a regular state of tears. Do you know how hard it is to sing with tears streaming? I've learned over the last decade or so to sing through the tears, but it's terribly hard to do. Not sure I could swing it with this awe-inspiring piece.



George Fredrich Handel was an amazing man! I look forward to meeting him and I bet he's writing some awesome heavenly music! A devout Christian, he wrote music both for churches and secular operas. I'm so inspired by his persistence and dedication to fulfilling the task the Lord set before him. His legacy has lasted for centuries, blessing people with the powerful words and music as well as providing charities with funding through its performances.

Born 1685, Handel was a contemporary of Bach - a fellow German and Lutheran. Even though he loved music and showed talent for it, his surgeon/barber father wanted him to be a lawyer. When he was only 8 or 9, he played a postlude on the organ at his church. A duke heard him and was so impressed that he insisted Handel's father further young George's music education. In only a few years, he had become so proficient on the organ, he often substituted for his own teacher. He'd written a composition and became a violinist and composer for the Hamburg Opera Theatre.


Handel traveled around Europe for several years, continuing his education and penning several operas. He finally settled in England and found both fame and failure. With debtor's prison looming at the age of 56, he received the libretto from a friend, Charles Jensen, and a grant from a nearby church for him to write the piece. The entire Messiah was written within one month.

Handel described his experience during those three weeks in tears when he quoted the words of Paul. "Whether I was in my body or out of my body when I wrote it I know not." And to his servant, who startled him just after he completed the Hallelujah Chorus, he said, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself."

The opening of the third movement of Messiah, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," adorns the statue at his grave.

Information came from  an article by Patrick Kavanaugh entitled Spritual Lives of the Great Composers.