AOS 1
HANDEL:
‘AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD’
FROM THE MESSIAH
THE BACKGROUND TO THE PIECE
 This setwork is taken from Handel’s oratorio, The Messiah.
 Handel wrote the piece in 1741 in his house in Brook
Street in London, where the Handel museum is today.
 The most famous part of the Messiah is the Hallelujah
chorus
 The whole of the Messiah is over 2 hours long with lots of
different sections.
 The chorus we learn about , “And the glory of the Lord”, is
only a few minutes long
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW ?
 This is for a Choir of SATB voices:




SOPRANO
ALTO
TENOR
BASS
 This piece is known as a CHORUS
 It is from one of Handel’s most famous pieces - THE MESSIAH
which is a religious (sacred) piece of music.
 The MESSIAH is an oratorio which is like an opera with solos,
orchestra and choruses but since it is a sacred work, it is
performed in a church (without acting) and not a theatre.
WHAT IS THE MUSIC LIKE ?
 It is for SATB and string accompaniment with a continuo
(bass line often played by cello/harpsichord/organ)
 It is in A major (3 sharps )
REMEMBER:
All major scales follow the pattern of (using A Major as an
example:
Tone (A -B), Tone (B-C#), Semitone (C#-D), Tone (D-E), Tone (EF#), Tone (F#-G#), Semitone (G#-A)
WHAT IS THE MUSIC LIKE ?
 The piece has 4 main themes or melodies
1. And the glory of the Lord…
2. Shall be revealed….
3. And all flesh shall see it together…
4. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it
Singing these will help you to revise !
THERE ARE DIFFERENT T YPES OF
TEXTURE USED..
 HOMOPHONIC – where all parts (the choir) move together
at the same time and sing together in HARMONY
 IMITATION - where one part begins and is then copied by
another part
 POLYPHONIC – where many different parts move at
different times singing/playing different things.
LISTENING ACTIVIT Y:
Listen to the 6 extracts and identify the texture of each
extract by holding up the correct card.
OTHER FEATURES YOU NEED TO
LEARN ABOUT INCLUDE …
 HEMIOLA rhythms –this is where the normal
beat of 3 in a bar gets changed for a short
time to a beat of 2 – it gives the rhythms
energy
 SEQUENCES - sing the tune “Shall Be
Revealed” – this has them – same melodic
ideas, sung either higher or lower in pitch.
 CADENCES - the last few chords in a piece or
section – this piece ends with a PLAGAL
cadence (“hath spoken it”)
PERFORMING FORCES & STRUCTURE
PERFORMING FORCES
 SATB choir: sopranos, altos, tenor s and basses
 string orchestra and continuo (cello, and harpsichord or organ
accompaniment.
 Orchestra of ten doubles the vocal lines. Where?
STRUCTURE
 Star ts with an orchestral introduction: ritornello.
 Shor tened ver sions of this ritornello return throughout the piece.
 No formal structure to this movement; it’s based on dif ferent
combinations of the four motifs.
 As the motifs repeat and imitate between the voices they are
sequenced into dif ferent pitches e.g. bar s 1 8-23.
RHY THM, METRE AND TEMPO
RHY THM, M ETRE A ND T EMPO
 3/4 throughout - simple triple time.
 The tempo is allegro = fast.
 At the end, by changing the tempo and adding in the general pause
this helps to emphasise the final words ‘hath spoken it’.
 The fir st three motifs use mainly crotchets and quavers
 The four th motif is characterised by long (dotted minim) repeated
notes – long notes emphasise ‘the Lord hath spoken it’. To strengthen
the statement fur ther he doubles the par t with the tenor s and basses.
 Handel uses hemiolas. A hemiola is a rhythmic device, of ten used
towards a cadence point, where the music feels as if it has 2 rather
than 3 beats per bar.
TONALITY & HARMONY
TONALIT Y AND HARMONY
 A major.
 Modulates (changes key) to two related keys: the dominant (E
major) and the super tonic (B major – which is also the dominant
of E major)
 The piece ends with a plagal cadence.
 The harmony is diatonic.
TEXTURE AND WORD SETTING
TEXTURE
 Variety created through homophonic and
contrapuntal/polyphonic textures
 For the contrapuntal texture Handel uses imitation, this is
overlapping the music by immediately copying the same
melody in another part whilst the first part is still playing.
This first happens in bars 18-25.
 To add further contrast Handel varies the number of parts
being played/sung, for example he may only have the altos
singing or at times two or three parts together.
WORD SETTING
 Melismatic and syllabic word setting throughout.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE VOCABULARY ?
WORK OUT THE KEYWORDS.
WHAT DO THEY MEAN/WHERE DO YOU HEAR THEM?
S_ _ _
S_ _ _ _ _ _ _
B _ _ _ _ _ _
O _ _ _ _ _ _ _
H _ _ _ _ _ _
S_ _ _ _ _ _
A _ _ _
T _ _ _ _
B _ _ _
H _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
D_ _ _ _ _ _ _
I _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
P _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
M _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
C_ _ _ _ _ _
P _ _ _ _ _ _ C _ _ _ _ _ _
P _ _ _ _ _ C _ _ _ _ _ _
A _ _ _ _ , E _ _ _ _, B
____
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE
VOCABULARY ?
SATB
SEQUENCE
BAROQUE
ORATORIO
HEMIOLA
SOPRANO
ALTO
TENOR
BASS
HOMOPHONIC
DIATONIC
IMITATION
POLYPHONIC
MODULATION
CADENCE
PERFECT CADENCE
PLAGAL CADENCE
A MAJOR, E MAJOR, B
MAJOR
NOW DRAW OUT THE FOLLOWING CHART. WRITE
DOWN AT LEAST 3 FEATURES FOR EACH OF THE
ELEMENTS/INGREDIENTS.