"Why is Messiah so popular?"asks Stephen J. Dubner (you know, the Freakonomics guy!)

AND WE DO SOME MESSIAH LISTENING OF OUR OWN!

"Why is Messiah so popular? I think it’s because what it is really about is ... hope. What do I mean by that? Well, this will take some explaining. Three episodes’ worth of explaining."

-- Stephen J. Dubner, in Part 1 of a Freakonomics podcast: Making Messiah

[3:46] Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis, cond. EMI, recorded in the Centre in the Square, Kitchener, Ont., Dec. 22-23, 1986

[A quick stroll through Andrew D.'s 1986 Messiah (which I love!) follows this intriguing news from Freakonomics Radio's Mr. D.]

by Ken

I don't listen regularly to Freakonomics Radio, the hybrid Public Radio broadcast and podcast conducted by Stephen J. Dubner (half of the Freakonomics team, with partner Steven D. Levitt). But while I was slaving away Sunday morning at what I hope will any day now (or any week, or month) yield half a dozen if not a full dozen Sunday Classics posts, all in a row!, I had the radio on. When the show came on, I was startled to hear Stephen D. talking about Messiah (yes, clearly Handel's Messiah!), and explaining that his explaining would require three installments -- all flowing from an unexpected passion for Messiah he contracted during the stressed times of COVID.

Mr. D. also discovered that personal passions for Messiah are widespread, and are found among startlingly varied folks of all sorts -- folks one mighjt hardly have expected to be thusly impassioned. Which led him to talk to a whole bunch of those folks about where this passion has led them. Longtime readers may recall that I have my own personal passion for Messiah, which I've indulged a number of times in this space over the years. (I could dig out some links if anyone cares.) Since I was otherwise occupied Sunday, I wasn't able to listen all that attentively to Part 1 of Making Messiah, and still haven't listened to any of Part 2. I made a point of ascertaining that the whole thing will remain accessible in various podcast forums, including YouTube -- check the website. Farther down you'll find links for Parts 1 and 2; I'll add a Part 3 link when it becomes available.

ONE THING I WANT TO STRESS ABOUT THE PODCAST --

is that this isn't your usual musicological Messiah deep dive that Stephen D. has undertaken. It's more of a cultural and historical perspective. While its findings bear directly on the text of the piece, it presupposes absolutely no knowledge of any of the subject matter. Yet its lines of inquiry seem to have produced results likely to be revelatory even to those of us who think we know the piece pretty well.

The Freakonomics podcast materials include full transcripts of the shows. I thought it could be helpful to dip into the Part 1 transcript to have Stephen D. himself explain the premise.

From the transcript of Part 1 of Making 'Messiah':
"The Greatest Piece of Participatory Art Ever Created"

Love is hard to explain. When you fall in love with a person -- or a place, or a thing -- who can say why? A few years ago, I fell madly in love with a piece of music. This was during the Covid pandemic, when there was still a lot of mask-wearing, a lot of social isolation, a lot of death. But also: glimmers of hope. I am a sucker for hope. I went to a concert, around Christmastime, with my wife and some friends, and the music I heard that night jacked up my hope meter to 11. It was a great feeling -- especially when there was so much uncertainty, and darkness, and so much fear of the future.

The older I get, the more I realize that “fear of the future” is essentially a default condition of humankind. One thing I’ve learned from interviewing historians over the years is that the historical outcomes that seem obvious today were not always obvious in the moment. The rise -- or fall -- of a given empire, or institution, was rarely a foregone conclusion; if one or two decisions had gone another way -- or one battle, or marriage, or pregnancy -- the outcome might have been different. But when you’re standing in the present, it’s hard to see where the future lies. If you sense there is an ill wind blowing, you assume it will keep blowing, in the same direction, and that things will only get worse.

So we make all sorts of predictions based on uncertainty and fear. Maybe that’s what allows us to so easily abandon our kindness to people who aren’t like us ... and to justify acts of exclusion. Which brings me back to the people and the places and the things that we fall in love with. Why can only some of us love certain things? That piece of music that I fell in love with — it’s an 18th-century Christian oratorio called Messiah, by George Frideric Handel. In some circles, it is very famous. So you may know every note -- or maybe you’ve never heard of it. Doesn’t matter. I had never really heard Messiah until that Covid concert -- and by the way, I’m Jewish. So not my Messiah, although Jesus of course was Jewish; we can talk about that later. As it turns out, a lot of Jews love Handel’s Messiah, as do a lot of Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists, and atheists too.

Charles King, a political scientist at Georgetown, recently published a book about Messiah called Every Valley. He argues that Messiah has “a good claim to being the greatest piece of participatory art ever created.” Why is it so popular? I think it’s because what Messiah is really about is ... hope. What do I mean by that? Well, this will take some explaining. Three episodes’ worth of explaining.

Let’s start in the place where Messiah was first performed, in 1742. It wasn’t in Germany, where Handel grew up, and showed great promise; it wasn’t in Italy, where he learned the ways of opera, and of patronage; nor was it in London, where the German-born king was his patron, and where Handel became a superstar. But by 1742, Handel was in his late 50s, and his star had dimmed significantly -- and that’s why I recently traveled, with some colleagues, to Dublin, Ireland. . . .

Here are links for the episodes of MAKING MESSIAH

Part 1, "The Greatest Piece of Participatory Art Ever Created" (12/5/2025)

Why does an 18th-century Christian oratorio lend such comfort to our own turbulent times? Stephen Dubner sets out for Dublin to tell the story of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah.

Part 2, "How Handel Got His Mojo Back" (12/12/2025)

When he wrote Messiah (in 24 days), Handel was past his prime and nearly broke. One night in Dublin changed all that.

Part 3, to come [as noted above, I'll add a link when available -- Ed.]


NOW, AS PROMISED, HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS FROM
ANDREW DAVIS'S 1986 TORONTO RECORDING OF MESSIAH

Andrew Davis CBE (1944-2024)

Some of these excerpts we've heard, and some we haven't -- I've added them for our stroll through this wizardly Messiah recording. I think I'll hold off till the following post to explain how I came to be thinking about and listening to the work of the late Sir Andrew Davis, a conductor for whom I had a lot of fondness as well as respect. The Messiah performance straddles several centuries' worth of music history and performance practice, attempting authenticity only with respect to the content of the material itself, his love for which shines through every minute of the recording.

The performance also boasts a pretty fine quartet of vocal soloists, all of whom we'll hear. Notably, we're going to hear four (count 'em) bass arias, which could hardly be more different, "The people that walkèd in darkness" and "The trumpet shall sound," because I find it hard to imagine them better sung than Sam Ramey does here -- okay, allowing for the special personal touch that Donald Gramm. So we're going to hear Donald G. as well! I don't want to gloss over the truly stirring account Florence Quivar gives of "He was despisèd." And Kathleen Battle and John Aler make the most of their opportunities. (Andrew D. always did work well with singers.)

One tiny additional note: It was only now, poring through materials relating both to Messiah and to Andrew D., that I realized he'd returned to Toronto in 2015, by that time long ensconced as music director and principal conductor of Lyric Opera of Chicago (and also for some 16 years officially Sir Andrew Davis) and made another recording, live, for Chandos, of what he described as "a new concert version" of Messiah! I've listened to the clipped excerpts available online. There's another pretty good vocal quartet, and it all sounds kind of quick (I notice that "He was despisèd" appears much shortened), though not frantically quick. I'm curious to hear more. We will be hearing a lot more about and from Sir Andrew.

HANDEL: Messiah

PART I

Bass Samuel Ramey (born 1942)

Sinfonia [3:29]


Recit. & air, tenor, "Comfort ye, my people" . . . "Ev'ry valley shall be exalted" [6:08]

with John Aler, tenor

Recit. & air, bass, "Thus saith the Lord" . . . "But who may abide the day of His coming?" [6:10]

with Samuel Ramey, bass

Recit. & air, bass, "For behold, darkness shall cover the earth" . . . "The people that walkèd in darkness" [2:42, 4:17]

with Samuel Ramey, bass

Chorus, "For unto us a child is born" [3:55]

with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

PART II

Mezzo-soprano Florence Quivar (born 1944)

Air, alto, "He was despisèd" [12:18]

with Florence Quivar, mezzo-soprano

Air, bass, "Why do the nations so furiously rage together?";
Chorus, "Let us break their bonds asunder" [4:26]

with Samuel Ramey, bass, and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

Chorus, "Hallelujah!
[It's nestled -- far from quietly -- under the image at the top of this post]

PART III

Soprano Kathleen Battle (born 1948)

Air, soprano, "I know that my Redeemer liveth" [6:07]

with Kathleen Battle, soprano

Recit. & air, bass, "Behold, I tell you a mystery" . . . "The trumpet shall sound" [9:30]

with Samuel Ramey, bass; Larry Weeks, trumpet

Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis, cond. EMI, recorded in the Centre in the Square, Kitchener, Ont., Dec. 22-23, 1986


APPENDIX: DONALD GRAMM SINGS OUR FOUR BASS AIRS

Bass-baritone Donald Gramm (1927-1983)

PART I

"Thus saith the Lord" . . . "But who may abide the day of His coming?" [7:04]


"For behold, darkness shall cover the earth" . . . "The people that walkèd in darkness" [7:06]


PART II

"Why do the nations so furiously rage together?" [4:44]


PART III

"Behold, I tell you a mystery" . . . "The trumpet shall sound" [2:55]

[A much-shortened version, alas -- happily, we can listen to Sam R.!]

Donald Gramm, bass-baritone; Boston Handel and Haydn Society, Zimbler Sinfonietta, Thompson Stone, cond. Book of the Month Club Classics Record Library, published 1956

UP NEXT (I think): We'll have much more about and with Sir Andrew, and the happy completion of a project he left not quite completed upon his passing (from the leukemia he'd been grappling with) in April 2024, at age 80.

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