Postponed - Handel's Messiah: Royal Free Music Society Choir

Update - With great regret, we have decided to postpone this concert in light of the coronavirus outbreak. We will let you know when we have a new date for it!

Join the Royal Free Music Society and the Hampstead Sinfonietta for their performance of one of the most famous pieces of baroque choral music – Messiah by George Frideric Handel. This large-scale dramatic work for soloists, choir and orchestra remains one of the best-known choral works in Western music.

Composed in just over three weeks in 1741, the exhilarating choruses and beautiful arias of Messiah tell the story of Jesus’ life. The epic and emotional oratorio uses texts in English from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer and is written in three parts - prophecies about the coming of Jesus and his birth, his suffering and death, and his resurrection.

From a young age, German-born Handel had worked in courts and churches across Europe and had composed his first opera by the age of 18. Settling in thriving London in 1710, he went on to write and produce numerous Italian operas. But public tastes were changing and opera was becoming expensive to stage. So Handel turned his attention to a different form of music – which allowed him to tell stories with singers and musicians but without costly stage settings and costumes. He did not write another Italian opera following the success of this oratorio, Messiah .