At the London premiere of Handel's Messiah on March 23, 1743, King George II was so moved by the music that he rose to his feet at the beginning of the Hallelujah chorus. When the king stands, everyone stands, and with this, a tradition was born. Or so the story goes.
This origin story for a popular custom is appealing, but it's not plausible tale for a number of reasons. First and foremost, there is no contemporary evidence that King George II attended that concert.
Word of Messiah's well-received premiere in Dublin had reached England, and the London premiere was highly anticipated. It was widely covered in the London papers, yet there is no mention that George II attended. At the time, the press often reported on royal activities, including participation in cultural events. The king's presence would emphasize the importance of the event, and given the press coverage before the performance, it's unlikely that the king's attendance would escape comment.
The first mention of the king's presence comes from a letter written 37 years later by James Beattie: “The King (who happened to be present), started up, and remained standing . . . and hence it became the fashion.’’
Still, it's not surprising King George II made his way into the Messiah Myth, given his family's long history with George Frideric Handel.
From 1710-1714, Handel was Kapellmeister to the future George I, then Elector of Hanover. Handel traveled to England in 1711 and introduced London society to Italian opera with his Rinaldo. It was a great success, and for years to come Handel wrote and conducted operas, served as director of the Royal Academy of Music, even traveled to Italy to recruit opera singers for his stage. George II, like his father before him, was a patron of the opera, and he wanted high quality music at state events. He commissioned several works from Handel, including four coronations athems, Music for the Royal Fireworks, and Water Music. Handel also taught music to George's daughter Anne, the Princess Royal. Given this long association, it seemed inevitable that stories of the royal family would become entwined with stories of Handel's music.
Legends, like memories, are a mixture of recall and invention. But these stories, however far they might wander from historical fact, have their own value. When customs endure, the stories explaining them shift to reflect a society's changing views and values.
One example of this is the changing views on monarchy. When Messiah came to America in 1818, the origin story of standing for the Hallelujah chorus shifted to reflect the new nation's more egalitarian sensibilities: King George stood in homage to the King of Kings, who superseded a mere earthly monarch. (This explanation is also favored by religious writers, for obvious reasons.)
History has not been particularly kind to George II, and over the years, his motivations for this mythical action have been downgraded accordingly. Conductor Robert Shaw, who intensely disliked the custom of rising for Hallelujah, suggested it was the king's bladder, not his religious sensibilities, that prompted him to leave his seat. Another oft-repeated explanation is that the king, who was dozing off during the long performance, mistook the chorus for the national anthem and leaped to his feet.
A common variation on the mistaken identity theory is that George II was "tone deaf" and could not tell the difference between the chorus and the national anthem. This seems unlikely, considering the king's active engagement with the arts, not to mention the dissimilarity between the two pieces of music, but the story reinforces the notion of a bumbling, irrelevant man--a far cry from the monarch who allegedly rose to shine his regal light upon the greater glory of the King of Kings.
If the most common explanations for this tradition have no basis in historical fact, the question remains: Why do people stand for the Hallelujah Chorus?
Audiences stood for certain oratorio choruses before the George II became associated with this practice; for example, it was customary to stand for the "Dead March" in Saul, an oratorio Handel composed in 1739. Nor was the practice limited to one or two favored choruses. A review of a 1750 London performance of Messiah indicated that the audience stood for "the grand choruses," not just Hallelujah. The reason for this is unclear; Boston Globe correspondent Matthew Guerrieri suggested in a 2009 article that "the sermon-like atmosphere of Messiah may have triggered audiences' churchgoing reflexes, and they may have felt compelled to respond, standing for choruses as if they were hymns."
While there is no definite answer to this question, after 270 years, it seems likely that audiences will continues to stand for the Hallelujah chorus for as long as this music is performed. It would be interesting to know what stories future generations will tell to explain why.
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