Editing Messiah (Handel) (section)

===19th century===
[[File:Crystal-palace-handel-1857.jpg|thumb|The Handel Festival at [[The Crystal Palace]], 1857]]

In the 19th century, approaches to Handel in German- and English-speaking countries diverged further. In Leipzig in 1856, the musicologist [[Friedrich Chrysander]] and the literary historian [[Georg Gottfried Gervinus]] founded the Deutsche [[Händel-Gesellschaft]] with the aim of publishing authentic editions of all Handel's works.<ref name=chron/> At the same time, performances in Britain and the United States moved away from Handel's performance practice with increasingly grandiose renditions. ''Messiah'' was presented in New York in 1853 with a chorus of 300 and in Boston in 1865 with more than 600.<ref>{{cite news|title= Musical|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1853/12/27/archives/musical.html|newspaper= [[The New York Times]]|date= 27 December 1853|access-date= 13 April 2022|archive-date= 12 February 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200212172511/https://www.nytimes.com/1853/12/27/archives/musical.html|url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title= The Great Musical Festival in Boston |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1865/06/04/news/the-great-musical-festival-in-boston-boston-enjoying-itself.html |work= The New York Times |date= 4 June 1865 |url-access= subscription |access-date= 11 February 2017 |archive-date= 27 April 2017 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170427203733/http://www.nytimes.com/1865/06/04/news/the-great-musical-festival-in-boston-boston-enjoying-itself.html |url-status= live }}</ref> In Britain a [[Handel Festival 1857|"Great Handel Festival"]] was held at [[the Crystal Palace]] in 1857, performing ''Messiah'' and other Handel oratorios, with a chorus of 2,000 singers and an orchestra of 500.<ref>{{cite news|title= Handel Festival, Crystal Palace|newspaper=[[The Times]]|date= 15 June 1857|page=6}}</ref>

In the 1860s and 1870s ever larger forces were assembled. [[George Bernard Shaw|Bernard Shaw]], in his role as a music critic, commented, "The stale wonderment which the great chorus never fails to elicit has already been exhausted";<ref>Laurence (Vol. 1), p. 151</ref> he later wrote, "Why, instead of wasting huge sums on the multitudinous dullness of a Handel Festival does not somebody set up a thoroughly rehearsed and exhaustively studied performance of the Messiah in [[St James's Hall]] with a chorus of twenty capable artists? Most of us would be glad to hear the work seriously performed once before we die."<ref>Laurence (Vol. 2), pp. 245–246</ref> The employment of huge forces necessitated considerable augmentation of the orchestral parts. Many admirers of Handel believed that the composer would have made such additions, had the appropriate instruments been available in his day.<ref>{{cite journal|last= Smither|first= Howard E.|title= 'Messiah' and Progress in Victorian England|journal= Early Music|volume=  13|issue=  3|date= August 1985|pages=339–348|jstor= 3127559|doi= 10.1093/earlyj/13.3.339}}{{Subscription required}}</ref> Shaw argued, largely unheeded, that "the composer may be spared from his friends, and the function of writing or selecting 'additional orchestral accompaniments' exercised with due discretion."<ref>Laurence (Vol. 1), p, 95</ref>

One reason for the popularity of huge-scale performances was the ubiquity of amateur choral societies. The conductor [[Thomas Beecham|Sir Thomas Beecham]] wrote that for 200 years the chorus was "the national medium of musical utterance" in Britain. However, after the heyday of Victorian choral societies, he noted a "rapid and violent reaction against monumental performances&nbsp;... an appeal from several quarters that Handel should be played and heard as in the days between 1700 and 1750".<ref>Beecham, pp. 6–7</ref> At the end of the century, [[Frederick Bridge|Sir Frederick Bridge]] and T. W. Bourne pioneered revivals of ''Messiah'' in Handel's orchestration, and Bourne's work was the basis for further scholarly versions in the early 20th century.<ref>{{cite news|last=Armstrong|first= Thomas|title= Handel's 'Messiah'|newspaper=The Times|date= 2 April 1943|page=5}}</ref>