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This Day in World History

March 23, 1743

Handel conducts London premiere of Messiah

Source: NYPL.

Remarkably, Handel needed only three weeks in the summer of 1741 to write Messiah. As his text, he used a libretto compiled by Charles Jennens from verses of the Bible and from the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. Jennens was apparently upset that Handel wrote the work in such a short time; he thought the sacred subject needed more time.

He was also annoyed because Handel debuted the work in Dublin in the spring of 1742, not reserving it for a London premiere. Leading Irish clerics (led by Jonathan Swift) insisted that, if their church choirs were to be used to sing the oratorio, ticket sales had to go to charity. That precedent established a longstanding tradition for Messiah.

When Handel finally prepared to present the work in London, more controversy arose. Some people objected to a work on a sacred theme being performed in a secular setting — London’s Covent Garden Theater. The controversy disappeared with the popular acceptance of Handel’s music, however. Even Jennens became reconciled to the composer, in part because Handel rewrote some sections his collaborator considered poor.

Today’s performances do not reflect the scores of these initial performances. Handel revised the piece often, and current productions use one or another of these later versions. The full Messiah tells not only the Christmas story but also of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. Groups that perform the oratorio at Christmas generally only perform the first part.

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By Kirsty OUP-UK

How jealous am I? Last night Judith Luna, Commissioning Editor of the Oxford World’s Classics series was lucky enough to go to the European premiere of Tim Burton’s film version of Sweeney Todd in Leicester Square in London last night. She has very kindly written about her experience as a film groupie just for the OUP Blog. Allow me to hand over to her…

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The trouble is, you can't talk about something like tonight without sounding either like a namedropping ass who is tremendously pleased with himself, or like someone with no soul, or both ("did Radio 3's The Verb, then junket at Claridges, then premiere, nipped over to Bafta screening for Q&A, then small afterparty. And so to bed").

So I'm going to tell you my favourite part of the evening, which was talking to Kate Magowan about Una (which is the part she plays in the film), and her calling over her husband to meet me, a husband who turned out to be John Simm, who interrupted my stumbling burbles of "ulp Life on Mars erk The Master" with his own starry-eyed "glunk The Sandman!" and pointed out that that meant he'd been a fan of mine for much longer than I'd been a fan of his so hahah and there you go.

I sort of floated out of there, after that. Holly said it was the alcohol, and she may have been right but honestly I do not think so.

(I just googled for photos of the event, and found http://icydk.com/2007/10/03/michelle-pfeiffer-at-the-stardust-uk-premiere-in-london-october-3/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/sky-news/tags/stardust/ More will turn up tomorrow I have no doubt.)

I saw lots of old friends, and I had a wonderful time, and I am glad that I had my family here, and now I am going to sleep excuse me.

Variety's review of Stardust is at http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117934304.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&nid=2562#

Sprinkled with tongue-in-cheek humor, fairly adult jokes and some well-known
faces acting very silly, this adventure story should have particular appeal to
fans of "The Princess Bride," but in any event will never be mistaken for a
strictly-for-kids movie.

The best thing in the film, Pfeiffer shows great comedic timing, and her metamorphoses -- as Lamia careens from flourishing beauty to horrible crone -- show considerable courage, as the actress manages to be funny regardless of what state of decrepitude she's in. It's not a very admirable character, after all: Lamia turns people into goats and goats into people, and she and her sisters foretell the future by hacking up animals and reading their entrails. They're not the most in-demand dinner guests.