![]() For, without the Foundling Hospital, Messiah would have been silenced. ![]() Had it not been for a newly established children's charity, Britain's best-loved and most famous choral work could have shared the fate of many of Handel's operas and faded into obscurity. But even so it wasn't a success: the Earl of Shaftesbury noted in his memoirs that, "partly from the scruples some person had entertained against carrying on such a performance in a Play House, and partly for not entering into the genius of the composition, was but indifferently relish'd". Indeed Handel was so concerned about objections that he suppressed the word "Messiah" in advertisements – the work was listed only as "A new sacred Oratorio". Although a popular form of entertainment, the theatre was considered disreputable by most and even sacrilegious by some, and was deemed an inappropriate place to perform the sacred story of the Messiah. For the London premiere the following year, Handel rented the Covent Garden Theatre from his friend John Rich for a week's run. Messiah premiered in Dublin in April 1742 in a charitable performance. However, oratorios, like operas, still required a large performing venue. In developing the English oratorio, the composer found a way to capitalise on the power of an orchestra, soloists and a choir of voices, while dispensing with the need for expensive sets, costumes and props. Profits were hard to come by and the Italian operas Handel had been writing in the early years of his London career were falling out of fashion. In 18th-century England, it was up to the composer to rent the theatre, hire the singers and musicians, and pay for costumes and scenery. Writing opera was a financially precarious business, then, as now. Perhaps another less well known part of Messiah's story and Handel's music is its intimate connection to the Foundling Hospital, and the composer's lifelong support of the UK's first children's charity, which continues today as the children's charity Coram. This was common practice – Handel didn't just borrow from his own work, he also borrowed from Telemann, Muffat, Bononcini and others, so much so that Handel's contemporary, the composer William Boyce, said of Handel: "He takes other men's pebbles, and polishes them into diamonds.". The composer frequently recycled sections of his own music: his coronation anthem Zadok the Priest appeared in his later oratorio Esther, his oratorio Israel in Egypt borrows from his funeral anthem for Queen Caroline, Messiah itself borrows from his early Italian duets. In which piece of music, apart from Messiah, did Handel include his famous Hallelujah Chorus? Answer: the Foundling Hospital Anthem. ![]()
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