Lent 2025 with Handel's Messiah
During Lent this year, at Tredington and Ilmington we’ll be following through Handel’s Messiah. Music, and the response it evokes in us, can be a good way of hearing and reacting to well-known biblical passages and stories. It also means, to the approval of some, shorter sermons, to enable the music to speak for itself!Messiah was written by G.F.Handel in late 1741, in an extraordinary three weeks, based on words selected by his friend Charles Jennens from the Old and New Testaments. It was first performed in Dublin in April 1742, and though it has become associated with Christmas, it was really intended as a Passion-tide piece. It will help us to reflect again on the life of Jesus as we go through Lent and reach the ‘Hallelujah!’ of Easter!
For more background on Messiah, Charles King’s Every Valley: the story of Handel’s Messiah (Vintage 2024) and Andrew Gant’s The Making of Handel’s Messiah (Bodleian Library 2020) are two recent books which are worth reading.We shall necessarily have to miss out the vast majority of this extraordinary, more than two-hour long oratorio, so you may like to listen to the intervening music between Sundays. If you don’t have access to a recording, there’s a full video of a performance of Messiah conducted by Stephen Cleobury with the Brandenburg Consort at (3) G.F. Handel - 《Messiah》 oratorio, HWV 56 [1752 version] / Stephen Cleobury & The Brandenburg Consort - YouTube, and the number after each piece (e.g. ’31.18’) gives the time at which it appears in the video.