Part 1, scene iii, no. 11 Air: Isaiah 9:2
“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”
The contrast in the text informs the composition of this bass aria. Handel fluctuates between modalities based on dark and light. He begins the work in b minor – dark and ominous – and uses the minor mode whenever the text is about darkness and the shadow of death. The melody also meanders around the key center using many accidentals and dissonant intervals.
When the text shifts to the light, Handel moves to the major mode and uses a chordal melody that reinforces the key center and mostly ascends.
Giving this aria to the bass must have been a no-brainer for Handel. Basses almost always play the villain – there is something about a bass voice that can seem more menacing than the other voice parts. But when a bass uses the top of his voice well it shines.
I must confess that I’ve never cared for this aria and I think perhaps Handel didn’t mean for us to. Darkness is frightening, unsettling. There is no way to gauge where you are. Until light illuminates the path you cannot find your way and are destined to meander around. But when the light shines, the path becomes clear. When there is light, there are still shadows, but they retreat under the noonday sun. The light does not eliminate the shadow, but it becomes less scary.
Death has always seemed to me more bleak and heavy when it happens in the winter. Grief is hard enough to bear when there is light, but in the darkness and cold it is oppressive, settling in around us and making it nearly impossible to find our way. When the light shines, so does hope. The light doesn’t eradicate grief, but it makes the shadows retreat at least a little. We still live in the shadow of death, we still walk in darkness, but a light has shone and shows us the way.
