Handel’s Messiah has always been associated with Christmas because its first part is concerned with prophecies foretelling the birth of Jesus with the narrative of the Christmas story.  In the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries English composers often took favourite sections from the work as the starting point for their own Christmas hymns and anthems. 

In this concert, a complete performance of Messiah Part I is contrasted with works inspired in various ways by Messiah, including the striking anthem ‘The people that walked in darkness’ (1790) by John Hill of Rugby and the delightful ‘How beauteous are their feet’ (1817) by William Matthews of Nottingham.  The concert will conclude with a rare performance of Handel’s anthem ‘How beautiful are the feet’, written for the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749 and incorporating reworked versions of several movements from Messiah.

Some of the music in this concert is featured on Psalmody’s latest Christmas CD Nativity (Hyperion CDA67443), which was released last Christmas to great acclaim; International Record Review called it ‘rasping, rousing and riveting’.