Page "Messiah (Handel)" Paragraph 121

The opening Sinfony is composed in E minor for strings, and is Handel's first use in oratorio of the French overture form.

Jennens commented that the Sinfony contains " passages far unworthy of Handel, but much more unworthy of the Messiah "; Handel's early biographer Charles Burney merely found it " dry and uninteresting ".

A change of key to E major leads to the first prophecy, delivered by the tenor whose vocal line in the opening recitative " Comfort ye " is entirely independent of the strings accompaniment.

The music proceeds through various key changes as the prophecies unfold, culminating in the G major chorus " For unto us a child is born ", in which the choral exclamations ( which include an ascending fourth in " the Mighty God ") are imposed on material drawn from Handel's Italian cantata Nò, di voi non vo ' fidarmi.

Such passages, says the music historian Donald Jay Grout, " reveal Handel the dramatist, the unerring master of dramatic effect ".