Messiah is here!

Sunday, November 14 at 3:00 pm, the new Garvin County Choral Society and Sinfonietta presents the Christmas section of Handel's beloved oratorio Messiah.This famous work was composed in the year 1741 in twenty-four days, from August 22nd to September 14th. It was first performed at a concert given for charitable purposes in Dublin, Ireland, on April 13th, 1742 with Handel conducting the performance in person. According to historical evidence, Handel knew that the Dublin orchestra and choral resources were by no means on a par with those in London and was markedly influenced by this circumstance in the composition of his work. In his choruses he did not go beyond four-part writing, and kept his orchestra within the most modest limits, so that no instrument except violin and trumpet plays a solo part. Handel brought out Messiah every year in London to great applause. In the course of time, he made various alterations in certain numbers, set several new ones to music, transcribed a few arias for different voices, but left the work as a whole unchanged both vocally and instrumentally from its original form, thus bearing witness that despite its limitation this primitive conception of the work was likewise the enduring one. As the centuries have have passed, the scale of the work has been increased with larger choruses often numbering hundreds of singers and instrumentalists. New orchestration have been written including the most famous by Wolfgang Mozart. Our production on Sunday, November 14 closely approximates the resources used by Handel in his original Dublin performance.