Handel Something of a Messiah in Dublin

He yearned for fame as an English gentleman, living and composing among London’s musical elite.

But it was among the cobbled streets and crooked alleys of what is now the poorest section of Dublin--The Liberties--that George Frideric Handel found immortality.

Here, the 18th-century German composer was introduced to a thriving choral tradition that remains strong today. Here, his horse-drawn carriage was mobbed by admirers, a heartening turn of events for the man who had left the Continent broke and dispirited.

Here, in the New Musick Hall in Fishamble Street, his masterpiece, “The Messiah,” was performed for the first time.

The date was April 13, 1742. It has been called “Messiah Day” in Dublin ever since.

The Liberties have changed since Handel clattered through them, scarred as much by poverty as history. But they still retain their Old World charm--narrow streets winding along the banks of the River Liffey, dotted with pubs and churches and dominated by two magnificent 12th-century cathedrals.

The Bull’s Tavern, where Handel stopped for coffee as he flogged tickets for “Messiah,” is long gone. The once-fashionable music hall is derelict, with boarded-up windows and a scruffy black plaque marking its fame.

But the “Hallelujah Chorus” still thunders from the cathedrals, and Dublin’s fascination with Handel seems stronger than ever.

The recent International Handel Festival drew thousands to performances, including a string of street recitals, concerts, banquets and an extraordinary open-air “Messiah” in Fishamble Street that seems to have strained half the vocal cords in Dublin.

“We all grew up singing the choruses. It’s part of who we are,” said a breathless Barbara Byrne as she stood among the throngs, belting out hallelujahs for all she was worth.

“You hear the ‘Hallelujah Chorus,’ and you just feel this joy.”

Overseeing the three-day fest was the “spirit” of Handel himself, whose extravagant arrival is still the talk of the town.

Resplendent in gold brocade waistcoat, silk stockings and powdered wig, Handel perched on the bow of a tug as it sailed up the Liffey, bowing graciously to the crowds lining the docks.

“After 255 years, how do I look?” he quipped, as his “Water Music” boomed from the decks and a media mob descended to greet him.

Dubliners lapped up every moment.

“Welcome back, Mr. Handel,” they cried. “We love you, Mr. Handel.”

Mothers pushed shy children through the crowd to shake the great composer’s hand. Teenagers raced alongside his horse-drawn carriage as it rattled past Trinity College behind a decidedly modern police escort.

The commotion was reminiscent of the stir Handel caused when he first arrived in Ireland a little more than 2 1/2 centuries ago, invited by the Lord Lieutenant to perform a series of charity concerts.

At the time, Dublin was a thriving port with a population of 120,000 and an arts and cultural life that rivaled that of the major cities of Europe. Charitable concerts were a fixture on the social calendar.

For the 57-year-old musician, the invitation couldn’t have come at a better time; he was bankrupt.

He flew into a frenzy of composition, wrestling, legend has it, with the oratorio and his soul. When he finished the “Hallelujah Chorus,” he is said to have sobbed, “I think I did see all heaven before me and the great God himself.”

“Messiah” has been a semireligious experience for Dubliners ever since.

“Whether or not he saw God, Handel certainly had the power to move people,” said bass singer Paul Kenny, after an exhausting, three-hour candlelight performance in a church near Fishamble Street. “He just gets into your heart.”

Initially, not everyone was so moved.

Jonathan Swift, then-dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, at first forbade his choristers to sing with that “club of fiddlers in Fishamble Street,” dourly noting the sinners and other theatrical types whom Handel had assembled. Among them was soloist Susanna Cibber, who had been involved in a scandalous divorce a few years earlier. Such characters, Swift concluded, were not fit to sing about the life of Christ.

The author of “Gulliver’s Travels” was eventually won over. In fact, one of the many legends surrounding the first performance involves a clerical friend of Swift’s, who was so moved by Cibber’s singing that he leaped to his feet and exclaimed: “Woman, for this, be all thy sins forgiven.”

From the start, there was no doubt that the “Messiah” was something special.

The crowd at the first performance was expected to be so great that special requests were made so as many people as possible could be accommodated. Gentlemen were asked to leave their swords at home, and ladies were asked not to wear hoops under their skirts.

“The sublime, the grand and the tender,” raved the Dublin Journal, “adapted to the most elevated, majestick and moving words, conspired to transport and charm the ravished heart and ear.”

The original performance included an orchestra, eight soloists and an all-male choir. Later performances added women singers, instruments and choruses. Around the world, they’ve been adding ever since.

The latest Dublin street version included about 200 choristers in formal dress and thousands of lusty amateurs.

From the steps of the new George Frideric Handel hotel, in the shadow of Christchurch Cathedral, Handel’s “spirit” mischievously surveyed the scene.

“My only regret,” he joked in an exaggerated German accent, “is that I left Dublin too soon to sample what I believe is its true spirit: a pint of Guinness.”

The Guinness brewery, about a mile away from Fishamble Street, opened 17 years after Handel left Ireland.

In his own day, Handel couldn’t express enough gratitude to “that generous and polite nation” that had saved his musical hide.

“The musical qualities of the Celtic people have always struck me,” he said, according to another piece of Handel-in-Dublin lore. “I once told a young friend of mine, an Austrian named Joseph Haydn, that I would willingly resign the fame acquired by my most celebrated compositions for the glory of being the inventor of ‘Eileen Aroon.’ ”

He was referring to the traditional Irish love song, whose “inventor” is unknown.