Well, duh. From the Bible, of course. We all know that. But when a pieces becomes so familiar, so ingrained in our consciousness, we forget sometimes that they’re actually about something–that the composers started with an idea, a nugget of truth, a theme.
Let’s first look a selection from Franz Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Creation: “The Heavens Are Telling,” is not from the first chapter of Genesis as you might have expected. Instead, it’s from Psalm 19, the first verse of which is: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (King James Version, thus the strange spelling of “sheweth” and “handywork.”)
The full choir keeps repeating, “The heavens are telling the glory of God,–with wonders of His work resounds the firmament.” The phrase “resounds the firmament” can sound a little puzzling, especially after we’ve sung it as many times as we do! It simply means,”the sky resounds, echoes with, the wonder of God’s mighty works.” (Isn’t “firmament” a totally cool word?) So if you parse the whole line out, you can see that the two parts of it are simply saying the same thing: “the sky/heavens/firmament are a resounding statement/declaration of God’s glory.” With my very, very limited understanding of how the Hebrew language works, I do know that it uses repetition of parallel phrases for emphasis. It’s quite common to see two-part sentences such as this one with each part saying the same thing but in different words. Since we’re talking about the Biblical account of creation, here’s a good example of this parallelism from Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The two phrases “in our image” and “after our likeness” mean the same thing.
The solo parts in this selection go on to develop ideas from the Psalm, and I would encourage you to go online and read the entire psalm. I’ll just take one of their repeated phrases, “never tongue be dumb,” to place in its proper context. So the psalm says,
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. (KJV)
So there is no place on earth where the speech and the knowledge about God’s works is not heard, i.e., “every ear will hearken” to this truth. And therefore it is also true to say that “never [will] tongue be dumb”–that there is no work of God that does not speak about Him.
You may be a little confused, as I was, about why we are singing a “new translation” of this work. Didn’t Haydn write The Creation in English to begin with? Actually the work was published simultaneously in German and English. I will let our dear friend Wikipedia tell the story here:
Van Swieten [the librettist and translator] was evidently not a fully fluent speaker of English, and the metrically-matched English version of the libretto suffers from awkward phrasing that fails to fit idiomatic English text onto Haydn’s music. For example, one passage describing the freshly minted Adam’s forehead ended up, “The large and arched front sublime/of wisdom deep declares the seat”. Since publication, numerous attempts at improvement have been made, but many performances in English-speaking countries avoid the problem by performing in the original German.
Others have made a stab at improving the English wording, among them the famous duo of Robert Shaw and Alice Parker, whose version we are singing. The paperback edition of the oratorio has an interesting short essay by Parker and Shaw about the evolution of the English version, saying that their translation is an attempt to “unite Haydn’s minutely picturesque musical language with the colorful and understandable English text which it deserves.” Sounds good to me!
Ho-kay. On to “The Hallelujah Chorus.” Two quick ideas about this piece:
1. It comes two-thirds of the way through The Messiah, not at the end. I was very surprised to find this out many years when I watched a performance of the entire oratorio on TV with my mom. (Where have you heard me talk about my great TV experiences before?) And it’s often sung at Christmas because it’s erroneously associated with the birth of Christ instead of the Resurrection and Ascension where it actually belongs.
2. Handel said after writing it, “”I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself.” You’ll see on your score that several passages from the final book in the Christian Bible, the Book of Revelation, are noted. I can’t do any better than just quote them for you:
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. (Rev. 19:6 KJV)
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. (Rev. 11:15 KJV)
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords. (Rev. 19:16 KJV)
Revelation is a strange, puzzling book that has ignited furious controversy over the two millennia of Church history, but no one can deny the utter magnificence and majesty of these scenes in Heaven. And we get to sing them! What a great privilege.
