No 44 Messiah

George Frideric Handel wrote his oratorio »Messiah« in less than four weeks in one single creative burst in 1741. In a well-matched selection of quotations from the Old and New Testaments, the libretto by Charles Jennens depicts the life of Jesus from the prophesies of his coming to his birth, Passion and resurrection, and closes with the meaning of the salvation story for mankind. Handel’s music, especially the rousing choruses, is received enthusiastically the world over, as it will be in Leipzig, when the president of the Bach Archive, Ton Koopman, conducts this most famous of all Handel oratorios.