The Initial Exploration Of Christian Spirit In Handel’s Oratorio Messiah

Handel’s Oratorio Messiah is a great work. The theme comes from the Bible, Messiah shows Handel’s excellent creative skills. It reflects the background of the society and Handel’s outlook of life. Taking Handel’s Oratorio Messiah as the researching subject, the thesis analyzes the spiritual meaning, musical style and so on, and finds Christian spirit in Messiah.This thesis consists of three chapters. The introduction describes the background for earlier study and the meaning of this study, and explains the research perspective and limit. Chapter One explains the social basis. It illustrates the political, economic and cultural background of current society, and it describes the Handel’s life experience. Through analyzing the basis, we can find the causes that why Handel created Messiah. Chapter Two is interpretation of Christian spirit in Messiah. Through Christian and the Bible, we find Christian spirit. At the same time, we find the way that how Handel composed Messiah with Christian spirit from listening, we analyze it from four aspects, guilt and hope, love and forgive, faith and redemption, free and tribute. Chapter Three is to analyze the cultural aesthetic of Christian spirit in Messiah. Handel changed the practice of non-human nature, and he emphasized the care of human nature. At the same time, he improved drama factor. He let listeners be recognized in the heroism and lofty thoughts from Messiah. The conclusion is to summarize Handel’s characteristic, which is the Oratorio to combine the Christian cultural characteristic with Christian spirit. It represents mental image of the spirit in British.This thesis is to analyze Christian spirit in Messiah. It has the important meaning to inspire current people through study social background, cultural value, aesthetic orientation and social effect. Through study this thesis, I want to let Music Community to know Christian spirit in Messiah and provide some study value.