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Title on Handel's autograph

Messiah (HWV 56) is an English-language sacred oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel. Its text was compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It covers episodes related to the Messiah mostly in verses from the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation. Handel structured the work in three parts, each in scenes as in Baroque opera. Part I covers prophecies, the birth of Jesus and his work, Part II focuses on his Passion, while Part III deals with the resurrection of the dead. Messiah was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, with a small orchestra of trumpets, oboes, strings and continuo. After an initially modest reception, the oratorio became one of the most frequently performed Western choral works, often adapted to large orchestras and choirs after Handel's death. Mozart modified the instrumentation in his arrangement Der Messias to a German text. The famous "Hallelujah" chorus, concluding Part II, is often performed individually. (Full article...)

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On this day

April 13

Damage caused by the Kamień Pomorski homeless hostel fire

1777 – American Revolutionary War: British and Hessian forces conducted a surprise attack against a Continental Army outpost at Bound Brook, New Jersey.
1829 – The Roman Catholic Relief Act received royal assent, removing the most substantial restrictions on Catholics in the United Kingdom.
1942 – Austrian soldier Anton Schmid was executed for rescuing Jews from the Ponary massacre in Vilnius.
1956 – The Vietnamese National Army captured Ba Cụt, a military commander of the religious sect Hòa Hảo, which ran a de facto state in South Vietnam in opposition to Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm.
2009 – Twenty-three people died in a fire at a homeless hostel (aftermath pictured) in Kamień Pomorski; it was Poland's deadliest fire since 1980.

Arthur Matthew Weld Downing (b. 1850)
Joe Hewitt (b. 1901)
Evelyne Daitz (b. 1936)

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Denis Mukwege (born 1955) is a gynaecologist and Pentecostal pastor who specializes in the treatment of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who have been raped by armed rebels. He has treated thousands of women who were victims of rape as a weapon of war since the Second Congo War, some of them more than once, performing up to ten operations a day during 17-hour working days. In 2018, Mukwege and Iraqi Yazidi human-rights activist Nadia Murad were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict".

Photograph credit: Claude Truong-Ngoc

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