This short audiobook grew out of a multi-part podcast by Freakonomics Radio Podcast host, Stephen Dubner. He became enamored of The Messiah by George Frideric Handel at the time of the pandemic. He put the podcasts together with additional material for this audiobook.
My own connection to The Messiah occurred when I was very young. Music was important for all my family members, in particular, church music. My father lead the tiny choir in our church and was excited to be part of the church choir members in our area who sang The Messiah each year with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington. Though our family members did not attend the performance of this event, one year my brother and I went with him to the dress rehearsal in Constitution Hall. I have a strong memory of being moved by that huge choir and the orchestra and that was my introduction to the power of music.
Much as I enjoyed this podcast/audiobook, I found I could not write a cogent blogpost about it. When I wrote about a fact or idea I wanted to remember, connected facts or ideas eluded me. I listened to it twice and still couldn’t write sensibly about it. I mentioned this to Jennifer who was reminded of Adam Gopnik’s pronouncement years ago: Podcasts have no form. So I’m going with my unorganized reactions to it.
As an aside I recalled having written about a podcast once before with a very different experience. Rebecca Nagel’s This Land had all the elements of a book I would write about.
Handel lived from 1685 to 1759; he was born in Germany and settled in London in 1710. He set to music the Biblical passages chosen by Charles Jennens, a wealthy landowner and devout man. He wrote other librettos used by Handel.
Handel was successful financially, as shown by the accounting still available in the Bank of England records. He mounted operas and had a stipend from the king, but by 1840, he was running short of money. Somehow it happened that The Messiah was written for a performance in Dublin where it debuted in 1842. He came back to London with money and was financially comfortable for the rest of his life. The initial London performance of The Messiah was not wildly successful, but it seems to have caught on.
The Messiah is an oratorio which means it was written in the style closely aligned with opera, though the lyrics are Biblical and it was performed in concert style, not theatrically. The Baroque style (1600 to 1750) broke with previous tradition and at the time involved improvisation. That similarity with jazz is hard to imagine now.
Though or perhaps because life in the 1730s was quite grim with illness, political strife, great poverty, the Biblical message of this music is meant to admonish people to take care of others.”Comfort ye my people,” from Isaiah is meant to encourage people to find ways to improve the situation of humanity. It’s interesting that early performances of The Messiah were done as charitable events, in one case for London Foundling Hospital. It raised significant money for this institution and enabled humble audience members to mix with the most wealthy, as well as hearing great music.
Stephen Dubner, Making Messiah, Audible.com, 2026, 2 hours, 48 minutes.