Handel's Messiah
DUBLIN VERSION 1742
Wednesday 13 April 2022, 7.30pm, Perth Concert Hall
Presented by WASO and St George's Cathedral
West Australian Symphony Orchestra respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and Elders of Country throughout Western Australia, and the Whadjuk Noongar people on whose lands we work and share music.
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Welcome
Dear Patrons,
Tonight’s performance of Handel’s Messiah comes at an apt time, given the seemingly relentless challenges that the world faces today. Sacred music of this calibre helps us to transcend earthly struggles, while feeling into the universality of our human experience. This is why we always need another performance of this well-known and much-loved oratorio.
Beyond the musical genius of Handel, so gifted in his use of word painting, it is perhaps its combination of humanity and other-worldliness that lifts Messiah head and shoulders above all other oratorios.
I am on record as stating that Handel wrote for the people and Bach wrote for God. Handel, of course, made considerable sums of money from performances of Messiah, which he often used to mitigate losses of his other, less popular oratorios. However, by accident or design, Handel’s Messiah is so special that it appears to have been touched by God, and this is why I believe it is the greatest musical composition of all time.
I would like to conclude this welcome by thanking everyone who supports West Australian Symphony Orchestra and St George’s Cathedral Concert Series. Our incredible underwriting sponsors, Julian and Alexandra Burt, have my eternal thanks for their infinite generosity.
Dr Joseph Nolan
Artistic Director, St George’s Cathedral Concert Series
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Handel's Messiah
Handel Messiah Dublin version 1742 (120 mins)
There will be an interval of 20 mins during this performance.
Joseph Nolan conductor
Sara Macliver soprano
Fiona Campbell mezzo soprano
Paul McMahon tenor
David Greco baritone
St George’s Cathedral Consort
Wesfarmers Arts Pre-concert Talk
Find out more about the music in the concert with this week’s speaker, Hugh Lydon. The Pre-concert Talk will take place at 6.45pm in the Terrace Level Foyer.
Listen to WASO
This performance is recorded for broadcast on ABC Classic. For further details visit abc.net.au/classic
WASO On Stage
St George’s Cathedral Consort On Stage
About the Artists
Joseph Nolan
Conductor
Multiple award-winning British-Australian organist and choral conductor Dr Joseph Nolan has been hailed by ABC Classic as ‘an extraordinary musician’, by BBC Radio 3 Record Review as ‘magnificent’ and by Limelight Magazine as ‘a colossus’. As a scholarship holder at the Royal College of Music, London, Joseph then won scholarships from the Countess of Munster Trust and the Hattori Foundation to study for two years with the legendary Marie Claire Alain in Paris.Appointed to Her Majesty’s Chapels Royal, St James’ Palace, in 2004, Joseph performed on numerous occasions at Buckingham Palace, and subsequently accepted the position of Master of Music at St George’s Cathedral in 2008. Joseph Nolan’s work as a musician has been awarded innumerable five-star reviews, Editor’s Choice, Critic’s Choice and Recordings of the Month and Year in Gramophone, Limelight, BBC Music Magazine, Classicalsource, MusicWeb International, and Choir and Organ magazine (UK).
Nominated twice for Artist of the Year in Limelight Magazine, Joseph holds the distinction of winning Editor’s Choice three times for disks of his much-feted Widor recordings from France and is the only organist to have been awarded Limelight’s coveted Recording of the Month award (St Etienne du Mont, Paris). Joseph has performed as a soloist on numerous occasions with ensembles such as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at Sydney Opera House, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra at Petronas Concert Hall, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra at Perth Concert Hall and with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra at QPAC.
Joseph was made a Chevalier des Arts des Lettres by the French government for services to French music in 2016 and was awarded the prestigious Higher Doctorate, The Doctor of Letters, by The University of Western Australia in 2018.
Joseph will make his debut as a featured soloist on a national tour with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in October 2022 before flying to Paris to record the complete organ works of Alkan at La Madeleine for award-winning UK label, Signum Records.
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About the Artists
Sara Macliver
Soprano
Sara Macliver is one of Australia’s most popular and versatile artists, and is regarded as one of the leading exponents of Baroque repertoire.Sara is a regular performer with all the Australian symphony orchestras as well as the Perth, Melbourne and Sydney Festivals, Pinchgut Opera, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Musica Viva, and a number of international companies.
Sara records for ABC Classics with more than 35 CDs and many awards to her credit.
Most recently Sara has sung with West Australian Opera, Sydney, Melbourne, West Australian, Tasmanian, Queensland and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Ten Days on the Island, the Australian String Quartet, St George’s Cathedral and Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra. She also sang with the Perth Festival, Peninsula Summer Festival, Brisbane Camerata, ANAM and Collegium Musicum amongst many other projects.
Sara has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Western Australia in recognition of her services to singing.
Image credit: Rhydian Lewis
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About the Artists
Fiona Campbell
Mezzo soprano
Fiona Campbell is one of Australia’s most versatile and beloved classical singers - the winner of the national Limelight Award for Best Solo Performance 2011 and vocal winner of the ABC Young Performer of the Year Award and the ASC Opera Awards.
Fiona sings regularly as a principal artist with all of the major ensembles and orchestras in Australia and with Opera Australia, Opera Queensland and West Australian Opera. Her international collaborators have included the Brodsky Quartet, Tokyo Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
She was Associate Artist for José Carreras in Japan, Korea and Australia and for Barbara Bonney in Tokyo and London. In 2021, she sang Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for The Adelaide Festival and was soloist with the Australian String Quartet and the Queensland and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. In 2022, she returns to WASO and the QSO and appears as Laura (Iolanta) and Flora (La traviata) for West Australian Opera.
© Patrick Togher Artists’ Management 2022
Image credit: Steven Godbee Photography
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About the Artists
Paul McMahon
Tenor
Performing regularly as a soloist with symphony orchestras, chamber music groups and choirs throughout Australia, New Zealand and Asia, tenor Paul McMahon is one of Australia’s finest exponents of baroque and classical repertoire, particularly the Evangelist role in the Passions of J. S. Bach.
Career highlights include Bach’s Johannes-Passion with the Australian Chamber Orchestra under Richard Tognetti; Bach’s Matthäus-Passion under Roy Goodman; Haydn’s Die Schöpfung under the late Richard Hickox, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor under Masaaki Suzuki and Mozart’s Requiem with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra under Manfred Honeck.
Paul’s discography includes the solo album of English, French and Italian lute songs entitled A Painted Tale; a CD and DVD recording of Handel’s Messiah and Fauré’s La naissance de Venus.
His most recent appearances include Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Zadok in Handel’s Solomon at Perth Concert Hall, the Evangelist in Bach’s Johannes-Passion and Matthäus-Passion in Melbourne and Brisbane, Haydn’s Creation with the Newcastle University Choir, as well as a CD recording of art songs by Australian composer Calvin Bowman.
© Patrick Togher Artists’ Management 2022
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About the Artists
David Greco
Baritone
Internationally regarded for his interpretations of Schubert Lieder and the works of J.S. Bach, baritone David Greco has sung on some of the finest stages across Europe and has appeared as a principal in opera festivals such as Festival d’Aix-en- Provence and Glyndebourne. In 2014 he was the first Australian appointed to a position with the Sistine Chapel Choir in the Vatican.He regularly appears with leading Australian ensembles such as Pinchgut Opera, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Philharmonia and, most recently, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in their Helpmann award-winning concerts of Bach’s cantata, Ich habe genug. As a principal artist with Opera Australia, he appeared in The Eighth Wonder and The Love for Three Oranges, and his appearances as Seneca in Pinchgut’s Coronation of Poppea and Momus in Platée received critical acclaim.
David Greco is an active researcher into the historical performance practice of 19th-century vocal music and recently received his doctorate from Melbourne University. This led to the first Australian recordings of historically informed performances of Schubert’s song cycles Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin (ABC Classic), the latter receiving an ARIA nomination for Best Classical Album (2020).
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About the Artists
About the Music
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Messiah
A Sacred Oratorio
Messiah by George Frideric Handel is one of the most famous and well-loved pieces of music in the western classical repertoire. Those who attend Messiah performances regularly, or listen to broadcasts and recordings, will be aware that there are differences between performances. Some of these are due to cuts made by conductors, but there are other variations that can be legitimately chosen. Unlike, for instance, the symphonies of Beethoven or Mahler, there is no single definitive or “authorised” version of Messiah. There are historical reasons why this is so, which make this masterpiece one of the most intriguing of Baroque works.
In 1741, Handel was close to despair. He had arrived in London as a young man of 26, having left his birthplace of the German town of Halle to work and study at Hamburg, Rome and Venice. He became the toast of the English capital with his Italian operas, beginning with Rinaldo in 1711. By the 1730s however, the English taste for this “exotic and irrational entertainment” (Samuel Johnson, 1755) was waning.
Handel had tried his hand at more English forms with English words - Acis and Galatea, a masque, in 1718, and also that year, an English oratorio, Esther. This he revived in 1732, and followed it with Deborah in 1733, while continuing with Italian opera and composing such enduring masterpieces as Ariodante, Alcina and Serse. By 1740 however, he was struggling; his last Italian opera Deidamia (although also a masterpiece) failed with the public. Handel was going so far as to consider a move away from England.
In March 1741 he was invited to Dublin by the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, baiting his offer with a brand new music hall in Fishamble Street. In 1739, Handel had been sent the text for a “sacred oratorio” called Messiah, compiled from Biblical texts by his colleague, literary scholar and landed gentry Charles Jennens. He put it aside initially and then, probably in response to Devonshire’s invitation, took it up again, and composed music for it between August 22 and Sept 14 in 1741 - an incredible burst of inspiration.
In November 1741 he set off for Dublin to establish a musical season. As well as the premiere of Messiah, it included L’allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (an English oratorio despite the title), Acis and Galatea, Ode for St Cecilia’s Day, Esther, Alexander’s Feast and (the only work in Italian) a concert performance of his second last opera Imeneo, called on this occasion by its English name, Hymen.
His singers included three from London, Mrs Susannah Cibber, Signora Maria Cristina Avoglio, often referred to as Italian but in fact a German woman with an Italian husband, and a Mrs Maclaine. For his other vocal soloists, choristers and musical forces he relied on local talent. Messiah was first performed publicly at a rehearsal on 9th April in 1742, with a “grand Performance” at noon on Tuesday 13th April. The Dublin press was ecstatic on both occasions, declaring that it was “allowed by the greatest Judges to be the finest Composition of Musick that ever was heard”.
The newspaper accounts inform us that the profits were distributed amongst three charitable institutions, the beginning of a long tradition of charity performances in Handel’s lifetime. It is interesting to note that all the newspaper reports of the day refer to it as “the Messiah”, a practice often sniffed at today. We may also note that there is no indication of anyone standing for the Hallelujah chorus. That practice is often attributed to one of the Kings George II or III, but there is no evidence to support this, and George II in particular is not known ever to have attended a performance of Messiah. The earliest mention of this tradition is not until 1750 at a performance at the chapel of the London Foundling Hospital - no royalty was present, but some of the bishops were, so perhaps they led the way.
Following this Dublin success, the work was next performed at the Covent Garden Theatre in London the following year, when it made far less of a splash than it had done in Dublin. There were subsequent performances between 1743 and 1759 at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, as well as Covent Garden, but not until it became a regular item at benefit performances at the London Foundling Hospital from 1750 on, did it become really popular. After Handel’s death, it continued in the public estimation, with gargantuan Victorian performances, and held its popularity to the present day. Every time Messiah was performed under Handel’s aegis, he altered it to suit the forces at his disposal. The 1742 premiere Dublin version was not as he originally wrote it (as found in the autograph version), and neither were the subsequent versions. In 1750 in particular he made changes to accommodate star castrato singer Guadagni. There is no such thing as a definitive Messiah; most modern performances are loosely based on a Foundling Hospital version of 1754, but are usually amalgams of different versions.
In tonight’s performance, we will present as near as possible the 1742 Dublin premiere version. We hope to allow the audience to experience something like that very first exposure of this masterpiece. If you have any familiarity with Messiah at all, you will notice a number of differences. Most obvious will be the small musical forces. Instead of a large choir, we have a relatively small number of choristers. There is similarly a small number of strings, and no oboes nor bassoon. Very important however are the trumpets and timpani, even though they play only in three choruses (the timpani actually only in two), and their effect is heightened due to the lack of woodwinds. You may wish to compare this small company with the 1859 Crystal Palace version which featured 2765 singers and 460 instrumentalists and an audience in the order of 10,000.
The distribution of the arias among the cast varied from performance to performance under Handel’s direction, according to which singers were available. In the premiere performance, the imported singers Signora Avoglio (soprano) and Mrs Cibber (mezzo-soprano) appeared, along with altos, tenors and basses drawn from the ranks of the choirs of St Patrick’s and Christ Church Cathedrals. We know that Susannah Cibber was a great favourite of Handel, although in the 18th century she was far better known as a dramatic actor than as a singer. And if truth be told, it appears that she was no musician; she could not read music, and Handel would sit patiently with her and lead her through her arias phrase by phrase. She must clearly have compensated for her musical shortcomings with an impressive stage presence, as attested by a famous anecdote.
Mrs Cibber had been out of the public eye for a few years in England, in the wake of an extremely well-publicised scandal involving her in an adulterous liaison with a man who was not her (admittedly totally unspeakable) husband. After her performance of “He was despised”, the recently bereaved Irish cleric Dr Patrick Delany leapt to his feet and cried, “Woman for this all thy sins be forgiven thee”. Not only did Handel provide her with this deeply moving aria, he also transposed the arias “He shall feed his flock” and “If God be for us” for alto voice to accommodate her.
The available tenor soloists clearly did not impress Handel overmuch, as the tenor soloist’s role is much reduced in this version. The bass has far more to do, but even here, we find that “But who may abide” is reduced to a recitative only. While the soprano lost some of her arias to the alto, it seems likely that she sang the original version of “Rejoice”, which is longer than the one normally heard these days, and in 12/8 time rather than 4/4, which provides a prettier, more dancing effect. Another difference is the version of “How beautiful are the feet”, sung by two altos from the choir, rather than soprano and alto soloists, with an immediate segue to the chorus.
In every other case, the choruses are the same as in other versions. The only exception is “Their sound is gone out”, which was introduced to Messiah in 1745 and is thus not included here. We hope you will enjoy this special performance of an old friend in a different guise, and perhaps hear it almost as that first audience did in Dublin in 1742, as an outstanding new addition to the cultural capital of the western world, and a monument to the Christian faith.
© Sandra Bowdler. Reproduced with kind permission.
First performance:
13 April 1742, Dublin.
First WASO performance:
18 September 1940 (Perth Symphony Orchestra). Thomas Beecham, conductor; Lisa Perli (soprano), Elsie Fischer (mezzo-soprano), Heddle Nash (tenor), Harold Williams (bass); and Perth Philharmonic, Perth University and North Perth choral societies.
Most recent WASO performance:
7-8 December 2018. Christian Curnyn, conductor; Sara Macliver (soprano), Fiona Campbell (mezzo soprano), Henry Choo (tenor), Morgan Pearse (baritone) and the WASO Chorus.
Instrumentation:
four-part mixed choir, four vocal soloists, two trumpets, timpani, strings and continuo.
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Text & Translation
Timeline
