Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/75

Rh Foundling Hospital. In 1750, after the gift of an organ to the Hospital, he was elected Governor. We know that his Messiah was first performed, and afterwards almost entirely reserved, for the benefit of charitable undertakings. The first performance in Dublin, on the 12th April, 1742, was given for the benefit of the poor. The profits of the concert were entirely divided between the Society for the Relief of Debtor Prisoners, the Infirmary for the Poor and the Mercers' Hospital. When the success of the Messiah was established in London,—not without difficulty—in 1750, Händel decided to give annual performances for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital. Even after he was blind he continued to direct these performances. Between 1750 and 1759, the date of Händel's death, the Messiah earned for the Hospital a sum of £6,955. Händel had forbidden his publisher, Walsh, to publish any part of this work, the first edition of which did not appear until 1763; and he bequeathed to the Hospital a copy of the full score. He had given another copy to the Dublin Society for the Relief of Debtor Prisoners, with permission to make use of it as often as the Society pleased in the interest of their beneficiaries.

This love of the poor inspired Händel in some of his most characteristic passages, such as certain pages of the Foundling anthem, full of a touching benevolence, or the pathetic evocation of the orphans and foundlings, whose pure shrill voices rise alone and without accompaniment in the midst