AOS 1 HANDEL:

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AOS 1 HANDEL And the Glory of the Lord
from The Messiah
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The background to the piece

• Handel wrote it in 1741 in his house in Brook
  Street in London where the Handel museum is
  today.
• The most famous part of the Messiah is the
  Hallelujah chorus
• The whole of the Messiah is over 2 hours long
  with lots of different sections.
• The chorus we learn about is only a few minutes

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What do you need to know ?

• This is for a Choir of SATB voices
• SOPRANO
• ALTO
• TENOR
• BASS
• It is from one of Handels most famous pieces -
  THE MESSIAH which is a religious (sacred) piece
  of music.
• The MESSIAH is an oratorio which is like an opera
  with solos, orchestra, choruses but since it is a
  sacred work it is performed in a church (without
  acting) and not a theatre.

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What is the music like ?

• It is for SATB and orchestra
• Strings
• Oboes
• Bassoons
• Kettledrums (timpani)
• Harpsichord which played along with the orchestra
  in Baroque times.
• It is in A major (3 sharps !)
• REMEMBER All major scales follow the pattern of
  Tone (A-B), Tone (B-C), Semitone (C-D), Tone
  (D-E), Tone (E-F), Tone (F-G), Semitone (G-A)

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What is the music like ?

• The piece has 4 main themes or melodies
• And the glory of the Lord
• Shall be revealed.
• And all flesh shall see it together
• For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it
• Singing these will help you to revise !

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There are different types of TEXTURE used..

• HOMOPHONIC where all parts (the choir) move
  together at the same time and sing together in
  HARMONY
• IMITATION - where one part begins and is then
  copied by another part
• POLYPHONIC where many different parts move at
  different times singing/playing different things.
  

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Other features you need to learn about include

• HEMIOLA rhythms this is where the normal beat of
  3 in a bar gets changed for a short time to a
  beat of 2 it gives the rhythms energy
• SEQUENCES - sing the tune Shall Be revealed
  this has them patterns going up and down
• CADENCES - the last few chords in a piece of
  section this ends with a PLAGAL cadence (Hath
  spoken it)

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Do you understand the vocabulary ?

• SATB
• SEQUENCE
• BAROQUE
• ORATORIO
• HEMIOLA
• SOPRANO
• ALTO
• TENOR
• BASS
• HOMOPHONIC
• DIATONIC
• IMITATION
• POLYPHONIC
• MODULATION
• CADENCE

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AOS 1 HANDEL And the Glory of the Lord
from The Messiah