‘HALLELUJAH!’

George Friedrich Handel’s rousing chorus from his oratorio, MESSIAH, occupies a unique place in the literature and in performance practice. The only piece of choral music that can be said to be known by EVERONE, is of such sturdy construction that people have been trying to match its musical solidity with sheer volume, sometimes on absurd scales, since its premiere in 1742.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ever-larger groups of performers would be amassed to give staggering voice to the piece, culminating in performances at the Crystal Palace in London [a huge public space in Hyde Park that existed from 1850 until 1936…] with singers in numbered in the thousands, and listeners in the tens of thousands.

In America, MESSIAH ‘sing-alongs’ are now a fixture of the musical landscape – events at which scores of the entire oratorio are passed out to everyone so that all can join in the song…

In the spirit of this adventuresome history, we have included little printed editions for your use this morning – at the Response to the Benediction.

Please take a good breath, and dive in!

-Keith Weber