Handel: Messiah, HWV 56

Description

Critical Edition with the original English text by Charles Jennens as well as the German translation by Johann Gottfried Herder, including a comprehensive historical and musicological preface and detailed critical commentary.

The focus of this new edition is the Messiah as first conceived by the composer in 1741: before its first performance in Dublin in 1742, before the first London performances of the mid 1740s, before the final Foundling Hospital performances in the late 1750s. The editor succeeds in creating a 21st-century edition from the perspective of 1741, making clear that Messiah was a genius hit from the start.

Messiah 1741 – the first and only complete edition of Handel's autograph score

• Thorough information on Handel's performance practice in 1741 (including topics such as orchestration, continuo, text underlay and specific questions on interpretation)
• It offers a reconstruction of the wind parts according to contemporary sources
• Piano vocal score with contemporary vocal ornamentation
• First edition including the German text by Herder – a monument of the German enlightenment – which is contentwise and phonetically closer to Jennens' text than any other translation, therefore being a perfect singable alternative
• The appendix contains additionally the most popular and important aria versions composed after 1741 for practical reasons.