Pulling back the curtain on the creation of a universally beloved work of art can be a daunting task. The backstory has the potential to lessen the final product or diminish the impact when we once again encounter the work.

But when you have a first-rate storyteller producing what one reviewer describes as a delicious history of music, power, love, genius, royalty and adventure, then that creation story can be illuminating in expanding—if such a thing is possible—the sublimity of the work itself. At the very least, after reading a new work by a historian who writes with “verve and authority,” you will never listen to George Frideric Handel’s epic Messiah the same way again.

Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel’s Messiah (2024) by Charles King is a masterful work worthy of the subject. Rather than look at the birth of this masterpiece through a narrow musical lens, King takes the reader on a compelling and vividly written journey through the lives of a set of characters living in the turbulent times of the early-to-mid 18th century. In doing so, King shows how a “universe of pain” coupled with the lives of imperfect humans could come together “to make a musical monument to hope.”

Many of us know the traditional story of the creation of Messiah. Handel had immigrated to London from Germany, and by the 1720s and ’30s his popular Italian-style operas “had made him a musical megastar.” By the time he reaches his 50s, however, he is writing oratorios and his popularity was waning. He receives the text that would become Messiah and composes the music somewhere between three and four weeks in August and September 1741, an astounding period of productivity. It debuted in April of 1742 in Dublin and then later in London.

But there is so much more to the story than the work of a singular musical genius. King provides the context of the troubled times, a period when wars were everyday occurrences, Britain was still in formation as a nation, parliamentary government was in its infancy, and the threat of regime change—at this point from the restoration of the Stuart line and the invasion of Bonnie Prince Charlie—was everywhere. Huge fortunes were being made in the trafficking of other humans through the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Men had complete control over their wives, to the point that they could give their spouse to another man for sexual pleasure in exchange for money and then feel justified in taking them to court when the liaison became more than a business transaction. Orphans roamed the streets of London, and almost 75% of all children died before the age of five. Pain was everywhere.

Add to these times of fear the desperation of a handful of people who each contributed to the creation of this monument to hope. A country squire and political dissident, Charles Jennens was emotionally tormented and found “solace in the elevating power of awe.” He would have the original idea for Messiah and gather the texts together which are now so familiar.

Susannah Cibber was a talented actor of the day who had the misfortune to be plagued by an abusive husband. Her name became synonymous with scandal when she was taken to court by that husband because she fell in love with the man her husband had given her to for sexual favors in exchange for money and backing. The tabloids of the period had a field day with the testimony. She would make the risky choice of singing the mezzo role in the Dublin debut which includes the dramatic “He was despised” text that she made her own and that contributed to her redemption as an artist and as a person.

The famous Irish cleric and satirist Jonathan Swift also played a role, almost wrecking the entire enterprise before it got off the ground in Dublin, only to relent by granting Handel the use of his cathedral chorus for the debut. And while the work debuted to acclaim in Dublin and enjoyed some modest success, Messiah would only become the recognized and beloved masterpiece over a decade later when it was performed to overflowing audiences in a church. That sacred space represented the life’s labors of Thomas Coram, an Atlantic sea captain and “penniless philanthropist” whose mission in life became helping other people’s children.

Finally, Handel himself was at something of a personal and popular crossroads when he receives this unconventional text from Charles Jennens and decides to try and make something of it. As one reviewer notes, “You can imagine him thinking, ‘Hmpf, what am I gonna do with these? I got a bunch of Bible verses in the wrong order that I’m supposed to set to Italian opera music?’ But he does it.”

King’s book describes the final product as “weird.” And the author laughingly doubles down on that assessment in a CBS interview. “It is weird. It’s the strangest thing that Handel ever composed.”

But out of this universal pain and the very flawed individuals who all played important roles along the way, Handel also composes one monumental musical testament to hope.

“Messiah matters not just as an epic piece of music but also as a record of a way of thinking, an archive in song handed down from a period of profound anxiety about improving the world whose deepest message is that one nevertheless had to try.”

King captures all of this in an illuminating and fast-moving story that pulls the reader along to the very satisfying conclusion. He ends this beautiful work with the exact words that open Handel’s masterpiece.

“Comfort ye.”

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To remind yourself of the power of Messiah, I have included this version, performed on December 6-8, 2024 at the Duke Chapel in Durham, North Carolina. The performers include:

• The Duke University Chapel Choir
• Mallarmé Music
• Kathryn Mueller, soprano
• Lucia Bradford, mezzo soprano
• Andrew Bearden Brown, tenor
• Jonathan Woody, bass-baritone
• Katherine Johnson, harpsichord
• Chad Fothergill, organ
• Zebulon M. Highben, conductor

Set aside a couple of hours to bask, once again, in the power of hope, where every valley is exalted, mountains are made low, and crooked paths are made straight.

More to come . . .

DJB