Editing Messiah (Handel) (section)

===Part I===
{{Main|Messiah Part I}}
{{listen|image=none|filename=Handel - messiah - 02 comfort ye.ogg|title='''No. 2.''' Recit. accompanied (''Tenor''): ''Comfort ye my people''}}
The opening  ''Sinfony'' is composed in [[E minor]] for strings, and is Handel's first use in oratorio of the French overture form. Jennens commented that the ''Sinfony'' contains "passages far unworthy of Handel, but much more unworthy of the Messiah";<ref name= L88/> Handel's early biographer [[Charles Burney]] merely found it "dry and uninteresting".<ref name= Hog17/> A change of key to [[E major]] leads to the first prophecy, delivered by the tenor whose vocal line in the opening recitative "Comfort ye" is entirely independent of the strings accompaniment. The music proceeds through various key changes as the prophecies unfold, culminating in the [[G major]] chorus "For unto us a child is born", in which the choral exclamations (which include an ascending fourth in "the Mighty God") are imposed on material drawn from Handel's Italian cantata ''Nò, di voi non-vo'fidarmi''.<ref name= Hog17/> Such passages, says the music historian [[Donald Jay Grout]], "reveal Handel the dramatist, the unerring master of dramatic effect".<ref>Grout & Palisca, p. 445</ref>

The pastoral interlude that follows begins with the short instrumental movement, the ''Pifa'', which takes its name from the shepherd-bagpipers, or ''pifferari'', who played their pipes in the streets of Rome at Christmas time.<ref name= L93/> Handel wrote the movement in both 11-bar and extended 32-bar forms; according to Burrows, either will work in performance.<ref name= B41/> The group of four short recitatives which follow it introduce the soprano soloist—although often the earlier aria "But who may abide" is sung by the soprano in its transposed G minor form.<ref>Burrows (1991), p. 87</ref> The final recitative of this section is in D major and heralds the affirmative chorus "Glory to God". The remainder of Part I is largely carried by the soprano in [[B-flat major|B-flat]], in what Burrows terms a rare instance of tonal stability.<ref>Burrows (1991), p. 63</ref> The aria "He shall feed his flock" underwent several transformations by Handel, appearing at different times as a recitative, an alto aria and a duet for alto and soprano before the original soprano version was restored in 1754.<ref name= Hog17/> The appropriateness of the Italian source material for the setting of the solemn concluding chorus "His yoke is easy" has been questioned by the music scholar [[Sedley Taylor]], who calls it "a piece of word-painting&nbsp;... grievously out of place", though he concedes that the four-part choral conclusion is a stroke of genius that combines beauty with dignity.<ref>Taylor, p. 41</ref>