The founders, Gottlieb Graupner, Thomas Smith Webb, Amasa Winchester, and Matthew S. Parker,[1] described their aims as "cultivating and improving a correct taste in the performance of Sacred Music, and also to introduce into more general practice, the works of Handel, Haydn, and other eminent composers.

It is doubtless to them that we must ascribe in great measure the improved taste in Sacred Music that is prevailing among us.Some early reviews noted that public interest waned after a few years as many standard works were repeated.

[17] From its earliest years, Handel and Haydn participated in music festivals and civic celebrations to commemorate significant historical events.

[22] Its 600-member chorus participated in Boston's memorial service for Abraham Lincoln,[23] singing "Mourn, ye afflicted people" from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus and "Cast thy burden upon the Lord" from Mendelssohn's Elijah.

[24] When Boston paid tribute to Admiral George Dewey upon his return from the Spanish–American War in 1899, 280 H+H singers greeted his arrival at City Hall with "See the Conquering Hero Comes" from Judas Maccabaeus.

In addition, the society held benefit concerts for the Union Army, victims of the Chicago fire of 1871,[26] and Russian Jewish refugees displaced by the 1882 May Laws.

[27] By the 1850s, H+H had hundreds of members, but fewer than half participated as the society presented repeat performances of a small number of classic oratorios varied only by a sampling of church anthems.

[32] One noteworthy member of the society's chorus in the middle of the 19th century was Julia Ward Howe, composer of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".

[35] The first works by American composers appeared in the society's 1874 programs: St. Peter by John Knowles Paine and the Forty-sixth Psalm by Dudley Buck.

[36] In 1892, the society presented the premiere of the Mass in E flat by Amy Beach, a youthful work by the first important female American composer.

[42][43] To mark the arrival of the twentieth century, 200 members of the H+H chorus participated in a midnight ceremony at the Massachusetts State House on December 31, 1899, leading the singing of "Old One Hundredth" and "America".

[22] In the new century, as musical tastes changed and other professional groups competed for the same audience, H+H reduced its performances to four annually and avoided innovative repertoire choices.

A better strategy arranged for concerts to be sponsored by local charities, such as the League of Catholic Women, Boston University, and Faulkner Hospital, all of which underwrote ticket sales.

[46] World War II created personnel problems and the number of choristers fell to 206 active members, its lowest point in a hundred years.

[48][49] Toward the middle of the 20th century, the Handel and Haydn Society began adopting the practices of the "historically informed performance" movement, striving for vocal and instrumental "authenticity".

This came in response to a 1965 review in the Boston Globe by Michael Steinberg, who criticized the group's failure to demonstrate any awareness of the revolution in performance practice already under way in larger music centers.

[50] He later described the variables at issue: "Decisions about tempo, articulation, vocal embellishment (long felt to be sacrilegious and unthinkable), weight and color of sonority, all contributed to this process."

"[51] In 1967, Dunn, an expert in baroque performance practice, became the society's artistic director and transformed its large amateur chorus into a smaller professional musical ensemble.

By the time he retired H&H was something of an anomaly, an ensemble that adopted historical performance practices for older music but played exclusively modern instruments.

[56] H+H also presented a number of programs that linked the baroque tradition of improvisation to that of such contemporary jazz artists as Chick Corea and Gary Burton.

The group gave several concerts in California in the spring of 2013 and ended its 2012–13 season with Handel's Jephtha, a dramatic oratorio given its American premiere by H+H in 1867.