top of page

Co-presented with the St. Paul’s Choir School

HANDEL’S MESSIAH

THEOLOGICAL VISION AND MUSICAL EXPRESSION

Saturday, December 7

Harvard Catholic Center

Professor Michael Marissen 

Swarthmore College

Handel’s Messiah is one of the most popular choral works of any composer. It may come as a surprise then that this masterpiece was not meant for Christmas. Michael Marissen, an expert on Bach and religion who has also written a book on Messiah, will explore the theological import in Handel’s musical settings of the carefully-chosen biblical texts that Charles Jennens compiled for this oratorio. Lecture with recorded music samples, study of the text (to be handed out), and Q&A. 

Recording of this program will be available for a limited time on our archive.

This event has ended

This event has ended

Hans Memling, Advent and Triumph of Christ, painting, c. 1480, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

Michael Marissen

Michael Marissen, the Daniel Underhill Professor Emeritus of Music at Swarthmore College, has written and taught widely on eighteenth-century music, with a specialty in the musical, theological, and historical contexts of the compositions of J.S. Bach. Publications include Bach against Modernity (2023), Bach & God (2016), Tainted Glory in Handel’s Messiah (2014) from Yale University Press, as well as articles in Harvard Theological Review, Lutheran Quarterly, and numerous other journals and general-audience media. Together with Daniel R. Melamed, he is the editor and translator of the web-based Texts and Historically-Informed Translations for the Music of J. S. Bach. Professor Marissen has a BA from Calvin College and a PhD from Brandeis.

bottom of page