It’s common to think of Messiah as a stable, fixed work. In fact, Handel constantly revised the piece following its 1741 premiere, accommodating a changing roster of singers and instrumentalists with new arrangements, different transpositions, and new arias contributed by the singers themselves. ABS’ 2009 performance draws on a version performed in 1753 at the Foundling Hospital in London, for the official opening of the hospital’s chapel, where annual performances of Messiah had been established a few years earlier.
This rendition is actually rather traditional, in that the score closely approximates the version that many modern listeners know and love. “Ironically novel this year is that this year’s version is most like the performances that are generally heard,” says ABS Music Director Jeffrey Thomas. “So far, as we have worked through the earlier versions, there were some very unusual settings of arias and choruses that remain mostly unfamiliar. Now, as we move on to the later versions, among the last that Handel conducted, the format that held fast for more than two centuries comes to the surface.”
ABS’ engagement with the oratorio extends back to 1992, when the ensemble joined with Cal Performances to coproduce a holiday performance. Two years later, ABS went solo, so to speak, presenting its own annual concerts in venues around the Bay Area. To keep the work fresh, Thomas employs various editions of the score, hires different personnel, and pays ever-increasing attention to historical details. “Messiah stays alive and fresh all on its own; it has done exactly that for more than 250 years,” he notes. “But we make our contributions, too. Last year, we set up the chorus in exactly the same way that Handel did, more or less antiphonally on the two sides of the stage. That’s a keeper!”
Thomas views this year’s score as a culmination of sorts, a summa of Handel’s extended engagement with a work destined for classic status. “This version,” he comments, “marks that bittersweet moment in music history when Handel, nearly blind and quite exhausted from a very long and sometimes profitable, sometimes difficult career, had essentially completed his work, having created the masterpiece that would be performed ‘for ever and ever’ (to quote the last line of the “Hallelujah!” chorus).”
As a final exhortation, Thomas speaks to the qualities that keep people coming back to Messiah year after year: the music, the tradition, and the sense of community. “These performances of Messiah in Grace Cathedral are one of the great San Francisco annual happenings. The place will be packed, beautifully prepared for the Christmas holidays, and the thousand or so who will be there each night come together to share something truly special. And there is nothing more superb than Handel’s glorious Messiah.”