George Fredrick Handel was born in Germany in 1685. His father was a respected barber-surgeon in his town, and wanted young George to study law. However, he could not keep George away from music. The little boy was obsessed with music.  He even was able to sneak a small clavier up to the attic of the family house, and he would play it when everyone was asleep!

 

When George was still a young boy, he went with his father to visit a relative, and on the trip got to see an organ.  His father lifted him onto the organ bench, and everyone was shocked at how well he could play the organ’s keyboard. This made Handel’s father decide that perhaps his son was a musical genius after all and should take music lessons. So Handel studied music composition, harmony, counterpoint, and learned how to play the oboe, violin, harpsichord, and organ. After studying music in Germany, he learned under the greatest composers of the time in Italy.

 

At the age of 27, Handel moved to London in England permanently. He learned how to compose in a new musical form, the oratorio. The oratorio is a musical play, like an opera, but does not have costumes, props, or acting. Rather, a story is told through vocal text and music.

 

Handel composed many oratorios on Biblical themes, including Esther and Saul. He also wrote popular music for royal events.  When King George II was crowned king in 1727, Handel’s dramatic anthem Zadok the Priest was played. It was such a resounding success and has been sung during the anointing of the sovereign at the coronation of every British monarch since then, and has become recognized as a British patriotic anthem.

 

By the time he was 56 years old, Handel’s career was in decline. He was competing for commissions with other talented composers. The process of writing music was emotionally and physically exhausting. However, Handel had faith that God would help him in his calling as a composer.

 

That year, Handel received a commission to write an oratorio for a charity concert in Dublin, Ireland. At the same time, a good friend handed him the words for a libretto on the life of Jesus Christ taken completely from the Bible.

 

Instantly, Handel felt inspired in a way he had never felt in his whole life.  Handel wrote 259 pages of complex music in just three weeks!  As he worked, he was entirely absorbed in the grandeur of the scriptures that he was setting sublime music to. He later wrote, “Whether I was in the body or out of my body when I wrote it, I knew not.”

 

During those 27 days, a servant came into Handel’s room to give him some food.  He saw the composer sitting with tears streaming down his face. He looked up and said, “I think I have seen all Heaven before me, and the great God himself.” On the final page, Handel wrote the initials SDG, “Soli Deo Gloria,” which is Latin for “To the glory of God alone.”

 

But what would the public think of this music that had been written in such a short period of time? The Messiah was a resounding success, and transformed the rest of Handel’s life. Everyone agreed it was a work of genius and inspiration.  When King George II heard the Halleluiah Chorus for the first time, he was so moved that he stood up. Because the king stood up, everyone else in the audience followed. Ever since people stand when the Halleluiah Chorus is played.  Nowadays, Handel’s Messiah is often played at Christmas time because it tells of the prophecies, birth, life, death, resurrection, and second coming of Jesus.