657. Whose “Messiah” Is It Anyway?

All sorts of people have put their mark on Messiah, and it has been a hit for nearly 300 years. How can a single piece of music thrive in so many settings? You could say it’s because Handel really knew how to write a banger. (Part three of “Making Messiah. (freakonomics.com/making-messiah)”)

• SOURCES:• Charles King (gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000…), political scientist at Georgetown University.
• Jane Glover (jane-glover.com/biography), classical music scholar, conductor.
• Katharine Hogg (foundlingmuseum.org.uk/our-story/history), musicologist, head librarian at the Foundling Museum.
• Susannah Heschel (faculty-directory.dartmouth.edu/susannah-heschel), religion professor, chair of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College.
• Mark Risinger (linkedin.com/in/mark-risinger-011b3659), teacher at St. Bernard’s School.
• Michael Marissen (swarthmore.edu/profile/michael-marissen), professor emeritus of music at Swarthmore College, author of Tainted Glory in Handel’s Messiah: The Unsettling History of the World’s Most Beloved Choral Work.

• RESOURCES:• Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah (amzn.to/48jWkm8), by Charles King (2024).
• "Why These Christmas Songs Could Only Be Written in America (thefp.com/p/eli-lake-jews-wrote-your-favorite-…)," by Eli Lake (The Free Press, 2024).
• "Reflections on Bernstein’s 1956 “Messiah (leonardbernstein.com/news/blog/238/reflections…),”" by Mark Risinger (Leonard Bernstein Office, 2022).
• Handel in London: The Making of a Genius (amzn.to/3MSYkcJ), by Jane Glover (2018).
• Tainted Glory in Handel's Messiah: The Unsettling History of the World's Most Beloved Choral Work (amazon.com/Tainted-Glory-Handels-Messiah-Unset…), by Michael Marissen (2014).
• “Handel’s Messiah (lnk.to/HandelMessiah),” performed by The London Symphony Orchestra (2007).

• EXTRAS:• "Making Messiah (freakonomics.com/making-messiah)," series by Freakonomics Radio (2025).

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