NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
by William D. Gudger

The most succinct description of Handelian oratorio published during the composer’s lifetime comes from the preface to the word-book for the oratorio Samson in 1743: Newburgh Hamilton, who adapted John Milton’s poetry for Handel’s use, wrote that Handel “so happily introduc’d here [in London] Oratorios, a musical Drama, whose subject must be Scriptural, and in which the Solemnity of Church-Musick is agreeably united with the most pleasing Airs of the Stage.” Thus Handelian oratorio is an amalgamation of two elements: sacred music, characterized by choral singing supported by the organ; and operatic solo arias, where the harpsichord is the main accompanying instrument.

During Handel’s period of producing oratorios for the theaters of London and Dublin, he created over twenty works, from Esther (1732) through Jephtha (1752). Three oratorios are virtually operas in concert form: contrary to Hamilton’s description, Semele and Hercules are not scriptural, and the Biblical story of Susanna is treated in an operatic mode.

At the other extreme are the two oratorios which use Biblical texts (rather than a newly written text which paraphrases a Biblical story): Israel in Egypt and Messiah. In both of these, choral writing is extensive; these oratorios come close to being church anthems, where soloists function anonymously, not assigned to be characters. Late in Handel’s life, Messiah became popular at a fundraising concert in the chapel of the Foundling Hospital, and from that point, it became a work heard in churches, from the provincial choir festivals to the Westminster Abbey commemoration of Handel in 1784. But the fate of Israel in Egypt was different.

Handel usually composed two major new works for each upcoming season, and in the late summer and fall of 1738, we find him at work on Saul and Israel in Egypt. He wanted to make use of his Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline (“The Ways of Zion Do Mourn”), performed on December 17, 1737, at the funeral of George II’s consort. Like his contemporary J.S. Bach, Handel was a great recycler of music, and he was determined that his anthem, composed with great affection for his fellow German, Caroline of Ansbach, would be heard by a wider public. The Coronation Anthems for George II had provided material for earlier oratorios, but the Funeral Anthem had no obvious home. Handel proposed using it as the Elegy on the Death of Saul and Jonathan, but the author of the text of Saul, Charles Jennens, convinced him otherwise. So the following scheme was devised to create a three-part oratorio about the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt: the Funeral Anthem, with easily-made changes of gender, would be Part I: “The Lamentation of the Israelites for the Death of Joseph.” Part III would be an extended anthem-like setting of “Moses’ Song” from Chapter 15 of Exodus. That is was probably Handel’s own idea to use this text comes from the fact that he uncharacteristically wrote this music first, out of order. “Moses’ Song” was composed (according to Handel’s notations on his autograph score) between the first and 11th of October, 1738. Handel must have been waiting for a librettist to supply an appropriate selection of Biblical texts to describe the Exodus, thus linking Parts I and III. In a mosaic-like selection, these words come from the first two chapters of Exodus plus appropriate verses from Psalms 78, 105, and 106, and Handel set them to music during the remainder of October.

The compiler of these words is not known, but a letter of Charles Jennens suggests that he was responsible. In writing to a friend about Messiah, Jennens refers to “another Scripture collection” which he made for Handel, likely Part II of Israel in Egypt. Jennens was an outspoken and curmudgeonly-acting country squire from Leicestershire. Never married and very wealthy, Jennens was educated at Oxford and later kept a magnificent townhouse in London. He produced what amounted to some of the first critical editions of Shakespeare; for Handel he wrote the word books for Saul (with Shakespearean overtones) and Belshazzar; he adapted and extended Milton for L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; and, most famously, he compiled from the Bible the words for Messiah. Jennens’ weaving together of various texts in that oratorio is brilliantly done, and he may well have helped Handel with Israel in Egypt while they were working on Saul. Since the Funeral Anthem had a text selected by the Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey, and “Moses’ Song” was taken directly from Exodus, Chapter 15 with little change, Jennens may have not wanted to take credit for the text if his contribution was only Part II. This strengthens the case that the whole scheme was Handel’s.

During his lifetime, Handel’s success with oratorios was greatest with those works which give a good balance between “the Solemnity of Church-Musick” and the “pleasing Airs of the Stage.” We now recognize Saul and Hercules as two of the master’s greatest dramatic creations, but these mythological stories baffled his regular oratorio audiences. The Lenten Wednesdays and Fridays on which Handel rented the otherwise unused theaters to give his oratorios attracted an audience which ran the gamut from those who looked on oratorio as an edifying religious experience to those who enjoyed it as a concert of arias. The April 4, 1739 premiere of Israel in Egypt, at the King’s Theater in the Haymarket, London, must rank as one of Handel’s biggest failures. Already the second performance was announced in the newspapers as “shortened and Intermix’d with Songs.” With a fully choral Part I (the Funeral Anthem), and two further parts with only a few solo arias (the duets belonging more to the “verse anthem” tradition of English sacred music), the solemn work must have been too much for those who wanted mostly songs. Though later defended by a number of letters in the London papers, Handel did not hesitate to pander to the audience by cutting some of the choral movements and inserting irrelevant arias—some of them in Italian!

Israel in Egypt was performed only three times in 1739, revived a single time in 1740, and then used in 1747 to form part of the hastily-assembled Occasional Oratorio. After Handel’s blindness, performances organized by his associates in 1757 and 1758 dropped to the first part in favor of materials from the Occasional Oratorio and Solomon. When the first full score was published in 1771 after Handel’s death, only Parts II and III (tonight’s Parts I and II) were issued, beginning with a recitative as interior acts of oratorios and operas often do. While the substantial choral aspect of Israel in Egypt may not have been popular with its first audiences, it of course became a favorite of the 19th-century choral societies. Felix Mendelssohn edited the oratorio in the mid-1840s for a short-lived attempt to issue a complete edition of Handel’s work. Its influence on him can be heard at the outset of his Elijah, which has a recitative before the overture, just as Israel in Egypt, in what came to be the standard two-part form, begins with a recitative. From then until the present, Israel in Egypt has had a steady tradition of performances.

After the opening recitative, Part I (“Exodus”) is framed by choruses in C minor. The opening chorus, scored for double choir like the bulk of Israel in Egypt, is one of Handel’s best choral laments, the hint of a German chorale lending an archaic flavor to the music. After the brief narrative recitative by the tenor, who functions much as does the Evangelist in the Bach passions, the sequence of the plagues is described in some of Handel’s most vivid musical painting. The severity of the plagues is leavened by the humor of the “frogs” aria for the alto. The orchestra provides the buzzing for the “flies and lice,” and the two-choir scoring continues with the lively depiction of hailstones. The chorus “He sent a thick darkness” explores chords almost romantic in conception and ends with a singular example of choral recitative. Among the music Handel “recycled” into Israel in Egypt are two of his keyboard fugues, one of which represents the smiting of the first-born of Egypt—with the stroke of the blade heard in detached orchestral chords. Handel used a number of works by little-known continental composers as models, including a fugue of Johann Kaspar Kerll for the text “Egypt was glad when they departed,” adding further to the archaic feel of the vocal polyphony.

Part II (“Moses’ Song”) begins with an overture-like chorus; the entrance of the eight-part choir, capped off by the brilliant timbre of trumpets, creates an effect not unlike the beginning of the famous Coronation Anthem “Zadok the Priest.” The rich sequence of choruses, from “The depths have covered them” through “And with the blast of thy nostrils,” draws its skeletal structure from a Magnificat by the otherwise unknown Dionigi Erba; Handel repays this “loan” with “interest” compounded several times over. (Other composers who supplied Handel with ideas include Stradella, Urio, and Strungk.) “The people shall hear” is justly celebrated for its depiction of “they shall be still as a stone” and “till Thy people pass over, O Lord.” The final sequence of choruses begins with short outbursts interrupted by the tenor’s narration, finally culminating with a soprano intoning Miriam’s words. This leads into a full recapitulation of the double chorus, heard already at the beginning of Part II, which opposes the broader theme “I will sing unto the Lord” with its lively counterpoint “The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.” Handel’s Israel in Egypt stands, much as does Bach’s Mass in B minor, as summary of the composer’s brilliance in multi-part choral writing supported by a colorful palette of orchestral colors.

William D. Gudger is Professor of Music History and Theory at the College of Charleston and Organist of the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul. His articles and editions on the music of Handel have been published in the US, Great Britain, and Germany. He serves on the Board of the American Handel Society.