Concert Review: Handel's Messiah at Lincoln Center
This concert review examines a performance of Handel's Messiah at Lincoln Center featuring the 1959 orchestral arrangement by Thomas Beecham and Eugene Goossens. The paper provides historical context for the oratorio — from its 1742 Dublin premiere to its gradual rise as one of the most frequently performed choral works in the classical repertoire — before offering an experiential account of the performance itself. The review reflects on how Handel's multinational identity shaped the work's English-language text, how the expanded orchestration enhances rather than diminishes the original, and how live musical experience ultimately transcends scholarly analysis.
- An Updated Classic: History of Messiah and its 1959 orchestral update
- Historical Context of the Messiah: Handel's background and the work's cultural identity
- Enjoying the Music: First-hand account of the Lincoln Center performance
- Conclusion: Reflection on knowledge versus emotional listening
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What makes this paper effective
- Smoothly integrates historical and biographical background with first-person concert experience, giving the review both scholarly grounding and personal immediacy.
- Uses the theme of Handel's expatriation and cultural adoption as a through-line that connects the work's origins, its 1959 re-arrangement, and its performance in America.
- Closes with a graceful reflection on the limits of academic analysis during live performance, reinforcing the paper's central argument through personal observation rather than assertion.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis of secondary sources with experiential writing. Citations from musicologists (Burrows, Lang, Luckett, Stapert) are woven into the historical narrative without disrupting the review's conversational tone, showing how scholarly support can coexist with descriptive, evaluative prose in arts journalism and academic concert reviews.
Structure breakdown
The review opens with historical context for Handel and the Messiah, establishing the work's origins, reception history, and the 1959 Beecham-Goossens arrangement. A second section describes the concert experience at Lincoln Center, covering orchestration, vocal performance, and audience atmosphere. A brief conclusion reflects on the relationship between musical knowledge and emotional reception. The structure moves deliberately from the intellectual to the experiential.
An Updated Classic
Even though most people probably could not hum Handel's Messiah or recognize it if they heard it on the radio, the pairing of the composer's name with the title choral-and-orchestra piece is something many would find familiar. First performed in Dublin in 1742 — a little more than half a year after it was composed in a mad dash of twenty-four days — the Messiah, labeled an oratorio (a specific type of instrumental and choral setting for religious texts), took some time to gain momentum but became and has remained one of the most well-known works of its type and of all classical music (Burrows, 1991; Stapert, 2010). It is now one of the most frequently performed choral works of all types, and certainly of the oratorio genre, and has been so since the nineteenth century (Luckett, 1992). This popularity is responsible for making at least the title of the piece so widely recognized.
With a work so well-known that its reputation precedes its sound, it might seem arrogant for anyone in the modern era to update it. This is exactly what occurred in 1959, however, according to the notes contained in the programs distributed as the crowd filtered into the concert hall at Lincoln Center. That was the year that Thomas Beecham and Eugene Goossens composed an arrangement of the work for a full symphony orchestra, which first premiered at Lincoln Center half a century ago and was played again as one more link in a long chain of evenings celebrating this well-loved work.
Interestingly, the update the piece received in this new arrangement is somewhat fitting given Handel's history and the history of the piece itself. Born in Germany in the late seventeenth century, Handel moved to England relatively early in his adulthood and became a full English citizen in 1727 (Lang, 1997). Though both nations and cultures love to claim the composer as their own, the Messiah makes an undeniable statement of Handel's expatriation and his adoption of his new country and its people. Unlike a great many oratorios and other religious music involving singing — where the words were often in Latin or in Latinate languages — Handel composed the Messiah for an English-language text compiled from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer (Burrows, 1991; Stapert, 2010). Though this signaled a definite adoption of Handel's long-time home, the piece's premiere in Ireland, its postponed debut in England, and its initially tepid reception made it something of a troubled child for the composer and his country, at least for a short while (Lang, 1997; Luckett, 1992).
Historical Context of the Messiah
This could hardly be guessed at by the sense of excitement and enthusiasm in the crowd at Lincoln Center on November 27th. Here, the people eager to see this updated and slightly Americanized version of the choral and orchestral piece seemed to signal that in yet another adopted home, the Messiah found new life — just as it has continued to find life throughout the world. The update the piece received in 1959 was a fitting way to bring the oratorio into the New World, both in terms of geography and historical progression.
Conclusion
Understanding music can undoubtedly lead to its deeper appreciation. When it comes to attending a live performance, however, nothing matters more than listening with an open mind. That way, the body and soul can be filled with their own type of knowledge, too.
Burrows, D. (1991). Handel, Messiah. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lang, P. (1996). George Frideric Handel. Mineola, NY: Dover.
Luckett, R. (1995). Handel's Messiah: A Celebration. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.
Stapert, C. (2010). Handel's Messiah: Comfort for God's People. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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