Part 1, scene iv, nos. 14a and 14b Recitative: Luke 2:8-9
“There were shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.”
There is only one short section in Messiah that is actual narrative; it tells a story. There are four recitatives, two pairs, and a chorus that are taken from the book of Luke and tell of the appearance of the angel to the shepherds. One could argue this whole scene, beginning with Pifa, is the only section that truly follows the format of Handel’s other oratorios. Handel wrote somewhere between 25 and 29 oratorios, depending on how they are categorized, and most were drawn from Old Testament or Apochryphal stories. Aside from a greater role for chorus, and being in English, Handel’s oratorios resembled his operas. Recitative was meant to move the plot line forward, and arias were reserved for emotional moments or commentary on the action. But the other oratorios told an actual dramatic story.
The whole of scene iv could, theoretically, be staged, and I’ve seen a few unfortunate attempts at it. This is the Christmas story as we know it, the one that Linus quotes in the Charlie Brown Christmas special. I’m not sure why it is that the announcement to the shepherds has so impressed itself of the Christian psyche, but maybe it is because they were so ordinary. These guys were nobodies, and if they are the first witnesses to the King of Kings, maybe he is also for me, a nobody.
These recitatives follow a dry -accompanied, dry – accompanied pairing. The first two, which we are looking at today, begin with a pedal point on a C in the bass, and a simple statement of fact by the soprano: “There were shepherds..” It is short and plain. Only two chords appear over the course of four measures. The music is fairly static. The scene is set: nothing much is happening.
Suddenly, the strings enter with broken ascending sixteenth note arpeggios which create a magical shimmering moment. “And lo, an angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.”
Two contrasting recitatives in eleven short measures effectively convey the mundane and the majestic, the ordinary and the extraordinary.
