Georg Friedrich Händel Utrechter Jubilate

O be joyful in the Lord, be joyful all ye lands!

Serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.

Be ye sure that the Lord he is God: it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise:
be thankful unto him, and speak good of his name.

For the Lord is gracious, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures from generation to generation.

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Henning Bey

Als Georg Friedrich Händel im Spätsommer des Jahres 1741 am dritten Teil seines Messiah arbeitet, komponiert er auf die Worte „Since by man came death,  by man came also the resurrection of the dead“ eine Chornummer, die damals wie heute jedem Zuhörer einen Gänsehautmoment beschert. Langsam und leise singt der Chor in klagendem a-Moll a cappella die erste Hälfte des Textes. Und plötzlich folgt ein unwiderstehlicher Jubel in allen Stimmen, in dem mit der Auferstehung die Schrecken des Todes im rasanten Allegro und leuchtendem C-Dur hinweggefegt, weggesungen, weggefidelt und weggeblasen werden!

Diesen ungemein ausdrucksstarken Wechsel zwischen den Extremen hatte Händel zum ersten Mal in seinem Utrechter Te Deum verwendet – seinem allerersten Stück englischer Kirchenmusik, mit dem am 7. Juli 1713 im Rahmen eines großen Dankgottesdienstes in der Londoner St. Paul’s Cathedral der Friede von Utrecht gefeiert wurde. Auch hier geht es an einer

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Henning Bey
Translation: Gudrun and David Kosviner

In his mid-twenties, Georg Friedrich Händel had become an internationally active composer with several European princely courts vying for his services. The overwhelming triumph of his opera Agrippina in Venice in December 1709 drew the attention of, among others, the Elector of Hanover who offered Händel a position as court Kapellmeister, which he took up in 1710. Perhaps he did this already at that time with a view to later employment in London, since it was already generally known that in the not too distant future Queen Anne of Great Britain (as the last of the house of Stuart) would be succeeded on the British throne by the Guelf Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover as King George I.

It was surely for this reason in particular that Händel was awarded leave of absence on several occasions by his new employer in order to go to London and build a musical reputation for himself there. For his musical inaugural visit Händel deliberately chose

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