Handel: Messiah

• Sinfonia:

  -Style of a French overture: includes a slow section with dotted rhythms which is followed by a faster fugal section

  -Traditional: a pastoral interlude that introduces the shepherds follows the tradition of being in 12/8, with pedal notes that imitate the sound of the shepherd's bagpipes
• Tenor: 'Comfort Ye' and Ev'ry Valley':

  -Begins with an accompanied recitative: the start of the vocal music is accompanied by strings and continuo

  -Sparser instrumental texture as the movement goes in reflects the idea that the tenor is a lone voice in the wilderness
• Tenor: 'Comfort Ye' and Ev'ry Valley':

  -Opening music repeated an octave higher for 1.5 bars: builds expectation and tension

  Recitative ends with a perfect cadence giving way to the tenor aria

  -Word painting: 'exalted' is itself exalted with a long melisma, which involves an ascending sequence

  -Word painting: Wide range of pitches while singing about hills and valleys compared to 'rough places plain' on one repeated note, and 'low' being sung on a low note, reflecting the meaning of these words
• Chorus:

  -Fast tempo

  -3/4 metre that includes hemiolas

  Chorus built from just four ideas:

  • Opening alto melody that outlines the tonic triad
  • 'Shall be revealed' with a descending sequence and short melisma
  • 'And all flesh' with the same descending pattern repeated 3 times
  • 'For the mouth' with long repeated notes
• Chorus:

  -Variety of textures: Handel maintains the listener's interest by presenting melodic ideas in a variety of textures. For example, there is monophony in the first idea, being sung by just the altos alone, and then juxtaposed by homophony in the chorus. This melodic idea is then later used as part of a polyphonic texture, before a triumphant homophonic passage ends with a hemiola.
• Alto: 'Behold, A Virgin Shall Conceive':

  -Secco recitative with just continuo accompaniment
• Alto: 'He Was Despised':

  -Da capo aria

  -Ornamentation: a typical feature of baroque music is that the soloists would have varied the de capo aria's repeat of section A by adding ornamentation

  -Falling melody, suspensions, and awkward intervals add to the solemn mood that this aria wants to portray
• Alto: 'He Was Despised':

  -Word painting: flattened 3rd in the vocal line emphasises the word 'grief' and reflects the meaning of the word

  -Accompaniment stops about half way into the aria: the soloist is instead accompanied only by the continuo, because when the A section is repeated the soloist may take extra time to improvise a cadenza

  -Circle of 5ths in B section
• Bass: 'The Trumpet Shall Sound':

  -De capo aria

  -Features obbligato trumpet

  -Differs from Bach: obbligato written by Handel with space for the singer to be heard, whereas Bach made them continuous

  -Word painting: long melisma on 'change'

  -Use of hemiolas