Handel’s Messiah

I love the Hallelujah Chorus. It is something I look forward to every time my church’s choir does their rendition of it. The music is amazing and gives a truly great message and moves me to reverence every time. Handel does a great job in this section of really diving into the words and connecting them to the music. The word hallelujah (or alleluia) means “God be praised”. The way Handel has this written, as a forte dynamic, truly shows praise. The chorus goes on to say in a piano, “The Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth”, but immediately switches back to that forte. The later verses talk about God’s kingly aspects and they use coronets or trumpets, instruments that were commonly used in kings’ professionals. This gives the image of a king, and as I like to think, a kindly king. He does this by putting the whole section in a major key with whole-step harmonies to give a truly happy tone. This section shows Handel’s music-making abilities the best out of any of the parts of the Messiah, despite writing the other parts similarly.