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March 6, 2012 | One of the most beloved works of sacred music, Handel’s “Messiah” is the result of a series of remarkable and unlikely events, said Calvin R. Stapert, professor emeritus of music at Calvin College.

The story of “Messiah” begins with a form of music that grew out of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in 16th-century Italy and ends with a German Lutheran composer writing an oratorio in 18th-century England at a time when England had no tradition of oratorio.

And the result was a work of art that helped spread the gospel throughout the world, taking it to more people than any other single work except the Bible, said Stapert, the author of “Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People.”

“There’s simply nothing in music history that comes close,” Stapert said. “It is unparalleled in having so many performances for such a long time at such regular intervals by so many people, by so many performers, with so many listeners.”

Stapert spoke with Faith & Leadership recently about “Messiah,” its history and purpose, and the nature of art and entertainment. The following is an edited transcript.

Q: Many people today associate Handel’s “Messiah” with Advent and Christmas. Are we mistaken in talking with you about it for Lent and Easter?

There’s no problem with that at all. In fact, during Handel’s lifetime, “Messiah” and all his oratorios -- “Samson” and “Saul” and “Solomon” and all the rest -- were always performed during Lent.

It really had nothing to do with the specific nature of Lent and Holy Week. It was more the idea that it was inappropriate to have opera and other theatrical performances during Lent. An oratorio was not a staged entertainment, and it was sacred, so these performances always fell during Lent.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know how the tradition got started that “Messiah” was performed in Advent, but once it got started, it really stuck. It is appropriate during that time of year, but the content of “Messiah,” of course, covers the entire liturgical year, and the largest part of it is the Passion.

Q: You open your book with a quote from John Newton in 1786 who said that “Messiah,” when masterfully executed, can “afford one of the highest and noblest gratifications of which we are capable in the present life.” You agree?

I do. There’s simply nothing in music history that comes close. It is unparalleled in having so many performances for such a long time at such regular intervals by so many people, by so many performers, with so many listeners.

It’s unprecedented. There’s nothing to equal it. There have been various theories about why it was “Messiah” and not something else. Generally, they come down to little more than that Handel had a very good text to work with and he was a very good composer, and you put those together and you have something of lasting value. But you could say that about any number of works that haven’t caught on this way.

Q: You say “Messiah” is the result of a series of remarkable and unlikely events. Give us a brief history.

The story begins with a genre of music that grew out of the Catholic Counter-Reformation during the 16th century in Italy -- the oratorio -- and it ends with a composer who is German and Lutheran writing an oratorio in England at a time when England had no tradition of oratorio, except what Handel had written in the few years before “Messiah.”

Handel invented this English offspring of Italian-Catholic oratorio, and a lot of unlikely things had to happen along the way.

First, Handel went to Italy for a short period of time when he was a fledgling composer and got acquainted with Italian oratorio and then moved to London, where he wrote Italian opera. That’s what he loved doing. He was a man of the theater. He loved the drama of opera. He had a flair for it, and he would have done that the rest of his life.

But the English -- I say this tongue in cheek -- realized that this was a strange thing they were doing, spending a couple of hours or more listening to something in Italian that they didn’t understand. So, understandably, Italian opera in England fell by the wayside and Handel needed to find a substitute, which was his English version of the Italian oratorio that he got a taste of during his years in Italy. He sort of had to invent the genre.

Q: It’s called Handel’s “Messiah,” so we tend to forget the librettist, Charles Jennens. A critic at the time dismissed his contribution, saying it was an easy task, just putting together passages of Scripture, but you disagree.

Jennens’ contribution is tremendous. Despite what that critic said, it was no easy task to select these passages from Scripture. The selection is masterful. The more I look at it, the more I think it’s absolutely perfect.

He was not a great writer, but he was a good scholar -- in fact, a very good Shakespeare scholar. His critic was another Shakespeare scholar who was jealous and savaged the guy. Jennens probably had some of it coming. He seems to have been a very pompous, arrogant guy, but he was not incompetent. He was also independently wealthy, so he had the time to spend working on these things.

There are at least a couple of things that make his selections of Scripture for the text so good.

First, they are some of the favorite passages from Scripture -- wonderful prophecies, glorious hymns from Revelation, and some of the exalted language of Paul and of the Psalms. He found passages that, especially if set to music by a master like Handel, would be immediately engaging, but he also put them together in a sequence that is masterfully done.

Q: Tell us about the purpose of “Messiah.” What were Handel and Jennens trying to accomplish?

This was a time when deism was very much on the rise. It was a definite threat to the church, and Jennens’ collections of texts are meant to convince people that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the long-expected Redeemer of his people.

There are lots of pieces of literature -- sermons and commentaries and various tracts and pamphlets and even poetry from that time -- that had the same thrust, defending the traditional teaching of the church about the Triune God and the second person of the trinity, the Messiah, the one who will save his people.

“Messiah” is just one of countless pieces in that period that have to do with defending traditional church belief over against the deism that was becoming so strong. It was very much a defense of orthodox Christian faith.