What Is an Oratorio?

Why does an 18th-century Christian oratorio lend such comfort to our own turbulent times? Stephen Dubner sets out for Dublin to tell the story of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah. (Part one of “Making Messiah.”)

• SOURCES:
  • Charles King, political scientist at Georgetown University.
  • Katrine Nyland Sørensen, Danish broadcaster, host of Handel's Messiah - The Advent Calendar.
  • Mark Risinger, teacher at St. Bernard's School.
  • Michael and Aileen Casey, Dublin conservationists.
  • Proinnsías Ó Duinn, conductor and music director of Our Lady's Choral Society.
  • Stuart Kinsella, tenor soloist and consort singer.

• RESOURCES:
  • Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah, by Charles King (2024).
  • "Two Men Wrote ‘Messiah.’ You Know One of Them." by Charles King (New York Times, 2024).
  • "On Fishamble Street, family lives among four centuries of relatives’ keepsakes," by Zuzia Whelan (Dublin Inquirer, 2018).
  • Hallelujah: The Story of a Musical Genius & the City That Brought His Masterpiece, by Jonathan Bardon (2016).
  • George Frideric Handel: A Life with Friends, by Ellen Harris (2014).
  • Handel: The Man & His Music, by Jonathan Keates (2010).
  • "Handel's Messiah," performed by The London Symphony Orchestra (2007).
  • Handel's Messiah The Advent Calendar, podcast series.

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