“to transport and charm the ravished heart and ear..”

| Readers 1

If you’re in Dublin this week you could do worse than catch one of the Dublin Handel Festival events. The Temple Bar website has the details and a lengthy, and interesting, podcast on “freelance composer” Georg Friedrich Handel’s ten month stay in Ireland – which included the world premiere of The Messiah on 13 April 1742 at the New Music Hall, Fishamble St. Dublin. More on Handel here. And the Irish Times has a great quote [subs req]

It was a great success, as one mid-18th century reporter noted: “words are wanting to express the exquisite delight it afforded to the admiring crouded audience. The sublime, the grand, and the tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestick and moving words, conspired to transport and charm the ravished heart and ear.”

You’ll have to look elsewhere for the Hallelujah Chorus.. instead, here’s the overture..

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