Messiah (HWV 56), the English-language oratorio composed by George Frideric Handel in 1741, is structured in three parts.

This listing covers Part II in a table and comments on individual movements, reflecting the relation of the musical setting to the text.

Part III of the oratorio concentrates on Paul's teaching of the resurrection of the dead and Christ's glorification in heaven.

He had started in 1713 to also compose sacred music on English texts, such as the Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate.

In Messiah he used practically the same musical means as for those works, namely a structure based on chorus and solo singing.

The orchestra scoring is simple: oboes, strings and basso continuo of harpsichord, violoncello, violone and bassoon.

Block observes that the emphasis on the Passion differs from modern western popular Christianity, which prefers to stress the nativity of the Messiah.

He was despised The text in this movement comes from Isaiah's fourth song about the Man of Sorrows: "He was despised, rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3), indicating that "the Messiah will play a substitutionary sacrificial role on behalf of his people".

[4] Handel gives the pitiful description to the alto solo in the longest movement of the oratorio in terms of duration.

[7] The middle section is also full of dramatic rests, but now the voice is set on a ceaseless agitated pattern of fast dotted notes in the instruments, illustrating the hits of the smiters in text from the third song (Isaiah 50:6), where the words appear in the first person: "He gave his back – to the smiters – ... and His cheeks – to them – that plucked off the hair.

In a dramatic sudden adagio, full of chromatic tension, the movement ends on "and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all".

His lost sheep meander hopelessly through a wealth of intricate semi quavers, stumbling over decorous roulades and falling into mazes of counterpoint that prove inextricable.

A less dramatic composer than Handel would scarcely have rendered his solemn English text with such defiance, for the discrepancy between the self-accusing words and his vivacious music is patent to any listener emancipated from the lethargy of custom.

"[8] The movement is based on the final section of the duet for two sopranos "Nò, di voi non vo' fidarmi" (HWV 189, July 1741).

The text is set as a short tenor accompagnato, again based on a pattern of dotted notes in the instruments.

The strings through in violent figures after "laugh Him to scorn" and "shoot out their lips", similar to an outburst of laughter.

Jonathan Keates observes that Handel depicts the mocking, menacing crowd here, comparable to the turbae in Bach's Passions.

The tenor voice, going to report death and resurrection in scene 2, is comparable to the Evangelist in the Passions of Bach.

Originally written for bass, Handel rewrote the Air in London in 1750 for the castrato Gaetano Guadagni.

Two alto voices begin and are joined by the choir, stressing "good tidings", "break forth into joy" and culminating on a cantus firmus of one repeated note: "Thy God reigneth!"

[4] Why do the nations so furiously rage together An Air for bass in C major, accompanied by an orchestra in continuous motion, tells of the difficulties.

Handel originally wrote a long 96-bar version of this air, skipping the da capo repeat.

The choir introduces Hallelujah, repeated in homophony, in a characteristic simple motif for the word, playing with the interval of a second, which re-appears throughout the piece.

The line "for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" is sung by all voices, first in unison, then in imitation with Hallelujah-exclamations interspersed.

The third idea "and He shall reign for ever and ever" starts as a fugue on a theme with bold leaps, reminiscent in sequence of Philipp Nicolai's Lutheran chorale "Wachet auf".

The final acclamation "King of Kings...and Lord of Lords" is sung on one note, energized by repeated calls Hallelujah and "for ever – and ever", raised higher and higher in the sopranos and trumpets, up to a rest full of tension and a final solemn Hallelujah.