Nos. 18-21: Aria - “Rejoice greatly”; Recitative - “Then shall the eyes of the blind”; Aria - “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd”; Chorus - “His yoke is easy, and his burthen is light”
Zechariah 9:9-10; Isaiah 35:5-6a; Isaiah 40:11; Matthew 11:28-30
”Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; [lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off:] and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: [and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.”
”Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf [shall be] unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing:“
“He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”
”Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The close of Part One of “Messiah” uses a set of prophetic material from Zechariah and Isaiah to tell us how to identify the Christ when He comes, and then a brief quote from Matthew’s account of the Gospel with pronouns changed from “me” to “him” as an exhortation to “lay aside all earthly cares” (a quote from the Orthodox Divine Liturgy) and “find rest” in Jesus. Most people’s experience of “Messiah” ends here, with the Hallelujah chorus tacked on to the end of Part One or replacing “His yoke is easy” altogether (the joke is, His yoke may be easy, but this chorus is not!). Practically speaking, today’s audiences just aren’t good for more than an hour at a sitting, and a complete Messiah with its two and half a hours of music and a couple of intermissions is just too much to ask. Not to mention that modern labor practices would mandate a tremendous amount of overtime in that situation! Artistically and theologically, Parts Two and Three of Messiah also turn from the general mood of light and rejoicing in Part One to go through the tremendous pain and suffering of the Passion to reach the joy and hope of the Resurrection and eternal life, with quite a bit of deep theological knowledge assumed on the part of the audience (and, really, the performers). With all these things to consider in addition to the relatively high requirements on the musicians in terms of ability and endurance, truly complete performances today are generally left to professional ensembles in major artistic hubs.
“Rejoice greatly” is frequently excerpted for recital performances or auditions by sopranos, much as “Ev’ry valley” is by tenors. It is really a tour de force for the vocalist, showing off scales, leaps, and crisp articulations. “Rejoice” is repeated three times at the opening, each time with the interval widening to portray increasing excitement. This ascending “triplet,” if you will, is balanced in the contrasting section of the aria with four descending repetitions of “peace.” Jennens and Handel here emphasize the mission of Christ to “speak peace unto the heathen,” not to destroy them or lead his people in a war of conquest and conversion.
This leads into another of my personal favorite moments in “Messiah”, as the recitative and aria that follow mirror the earlier “Pastoral Symphony”. “Then shall the eyes of the blind” starts with a very similar melodic and rhythmic contour as the ascending scale at the opening of the Pastoral Symphony, and “He shall feed his flock” opens with the exact melodic inversion of this scale, set to the same meter and rhythm. This is absolutely sublime. This aria (or duet, as it is more often performed) moves seamlessly from prophecy to actual event, melding Isaiah’s image of the Christ as a shepherd with Jesus’ own description of his role. The choice of text is especially apt, since earlier in Matthew 11 Jesus answers disciples of John the Baptist who questioned whether Jesus was indeed the awaited Messiah by referencing the passage from Isaiah 35 above - Jesus was opening the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, making lame men leap, and even raise the dead.
Finally, Handel closes out the first major section of Messiah with a sort of musical romp. Christ’s yoke is so easy that His subjects are able to bounce around with very lively melismas left and right. On the surface this seems much like a musical joke, and I’m not entirely sure that isn’t something Handel had in mind! After all, Jesus says elsewhere that we are to become as little children to inherit the kingdom of God…might not anyone who has seen little children dancing around in church come to this chorus with an image of childlike innocence?