Tag: Shepherds

Messiah – Part 1, Scene iv: The appearance of the Angels to the Shepherds

Part 1, scene iv, no. 15 Recitative: Luke 2:10-11

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

In this very short, declamatory recitative, Handel delivers the greatest announcement of all time. By using secco, or dry, recitative, the text becomes the most important element. Handel uses the slow harmonic motion to support the text effectively and with great insight. He begins in the key of A major, and uses the most common of all chord progressions to begin – tonic, subdominant, dominant, tonic or I-IV-V-I. This particular chord progression has been used in everything from Baroque to the Blues and beyond because these three chords contain within them every note of the scale and therefore can be used to harmonize any note of the melody. It is familiar and it is comforting. “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy!”

But then we get a twist. Handel moves suddenly from A major into E major, the dominant of A, by way of a B major chord, which is the dominant of E. And he does it in two chords. Then we are thrust into C# major which finally resolves to F# major. Handel has taken us on a journey all over the map. “Which shall be for ALL people.”

That final key of F# indicated triumph over struggle in the Baroque period. Handel uses it here for one of the most important triumphs over struggle of all time: For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.”

God made man. The opening salvo is fired. The war against sin and death has begun. And while the battle will rage, triumph has been declared in the form of a baby, and announced to some ragged shepherds outside of Bethlehem.

Messiah – Part 1, Scene iv: The appearance of the Angels to the Shepherds

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.

Messiah – Part 1, Scene iv: The appearance of the Angels to the Shepherds

Part 1, scene iv, no. 13 Interlude: Pifa

After the joyful ebullience of For unto us a child is born, Handel lowers and raises the curtain on a new scene. One of only two instrumental pieces in the whole of Messiah, the Pastoral Symphony or Pifa introduces a quiet night in the fields outside of Bethlehem. Using a rocking compound rhythm known as a sicilienne or a type of music played by Sicilian shepherds., this sweet lullaby is scored senza ripieno, or without the full orchestra, using only a small group of strings. Most performances we hear today ignore that marking, probably because it is so beautiful everyone wants to play!

I’d always wanted to know what Pifa meant, so I did what any uninformed and curious person does – I searched the web. There was surprisingly not a lot of information on this. I had to go down a rabbit hole and one thing led to another. From what I pieced together, this made the most sense: the Italian word pifferaio means “piper or one who plays the bagpipes.” A piffero was a double reed antecedent to the oboe, and was frequently played with the zampogna or a type of bagpipe. Originally, these were rustic instruments but over time Pifferi (or those who play the pipes) provided music for important occasions. Handel, who had spent a fair amount of time in Italy, doubtless knew about this musical custom.

And yet he includes no wind instruments in his scoring of Pifa, just strings and continuo. He gives us the feel of the bagpipe by using a pedal point or drone in the bass. This soft lullaby is meant to tell us that a baby has been born, but an important one, as well as lull the shepherds and sheep to sleep in the cold hills. Handel uses a da capo format or ABA form, most commonly used in arias. The repetition of the first section soothes the listener even further as it is frequently played much softer on the return.

We hear in this recording a very small group of instrumentalists, much like would have been used in Handel’s day, but with some liberties taken. In the repeat of the A section, this recording uses an oboe and bassoon which is not in the original score, but I think enhances the idea of a bagpipe.

Learning about the pifferi has changed how I listen to this piece. I’ve always thought it was lovely, but somewhat dull, thrown into the middle of a masterpiece. Knowing the deeper meaning of what Pifa means completely changes this. I can hear the pipes, I can hear the Sicilienne, and I can hear the monotony of sitting night after night in the hills outside of Bethlehem guarding a flock of stupid sheep. To know that the pifferi announced great things, and that the greatest announcement of all time is prefaced to sleepy shepherds by a sweet lullaby, allows me to hear the subtle irony Handel infuses into this piece.

The extraordinary is masked within the ordinary, and I miss it because I don’t know what I am hearing.