In "All we like sheep have gone astray," are we laughing with Handel or at him?
Nobody can ever sing — or practically even talk about — "All we like sheep have gone astray" from the Messiah without noticing that the words "We like sheep" are prominently accented, in a way that distracts from the actual meaning of the text.
My understanding was that Handel simply didn't notice the double meaning, because his English wasn't good enough; I'm pretty sure one of my choir directors said something like this at one point. However, when this recently came up in conversation with a friend of mine, he said he'd heard that Handel did it as an intentional joke. Is there any surviving evidence that could be used to determine which of these explanations is true?
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I cannot say whether there are documents that address whether Handel thought of a double meaning in his setting of this text. The accent on the word "we" does seem a bit strange. Like you, I've heard the story that Handel's grasp of the finer points of English pronunciation may have been slightly lacking (after all he was raised in Germany, and studied in Italy), though I don't know how true it is. However, granting this possibility, I do think that his setting of the text serves a deliberate dramatic purpose.
Handel, like many other Baroque composers, viewed composition as a rhetorical device, whose goal, like other rhetorical devices, was to illuminate and bring meaning to the text. Throughout all of Messiah (and indeed, in Handel's other oratorios) you can see this kind of text/music interplay going on. From this particular movement, you can see examples in the almost-random disjointed scales of "have gone astray", and the rapidly-turning figures in "we have turned".
The larger theological subtext behind all of this straying and turning, which Handel is no doubt highlighting, is that we are enjoying ourselves in rebellion, as carefree and ignorant as sheep. The Bible admits that sin seems pleasurable, and "there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." This is the main contrast of the piece, because after all of our blithe frolicking, we come to the somber conclusion of the piece, which does an emotional 180: "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
Thus, perhaps he is accenting the word we to contrast it with the final him.
I want to correct some misinformation contained in the top voted answer. The claim that this is a result of Handel poorly understanding English is pure nonsense; with regard to the (valid) complaint about the placement of stress in "For unto us a child is born," the music was almost directly lifted from an earlier duet of Handel: "Nò, di voi non vo' fidarmi." The initial stress makes PERFECT sense for this Italian text ("NO...I do not want to trust you, blind love, cruel beauty...") Take a listen here:
(I actually was somewhat shocked when I heard this for the first time and realized just how little Handel changed - though he added the defining homophonic chords on "Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God...etc.")
Oh, and if you stick around for the ending Allegro portion...it's "All we like sheep"! Again, almost directly lifted from the duet. It should say something that these two choruses are the ones that draw attention for their inappropriateness. It seems when Handel makes a stronger effort, things turn out quite well (remember that he composed this in about four weeks...will we begrudge him this?)
I think this should settle the question of why the text/music match here seems strange. However, the question of whether "All we like sheep" ought to be set to a more somber tune is a valid one. In the first place, it seems like Baroque (and early Classical) composers did not follow the "playful = fast and major, serious = slow and minor" rule quite as extensively as perhaps we assume they did. I know that Robert Levin makes this argument in justification of portions of his completion of Mozart's Great Mass in C minor, where critics make a similar "this text is too serious to be set to music like this" claim.
In the second place, I think everything else about Messiah should dissuade you from the opinion that Handel is just "trying to make a joke." I think that this choice was very intentional. The apparent disparity between the lively music and the dire text only serves to emphasize that "all we like sheep have gone astray," and "every one [has turned] to his own way." It stresses not only that sinners are flippant about God's law, but we are flippant about being flippant (i.e. we know we sin but still enjoy/do it). The aimless melismas and the opposite directions on "have gone astra-a-a-a-a-y" certainly emphasize the text in another fine example of Handel's word painting.
In short, you can't really claim in one place that Handel exemplifies good word painting ("Ev'ry valley" is the go-to example) and then turn around and say that these two choruses are poorly set because Handel "had a bad grasp of English." I don't think Handel was a native Italian speaker either and "Nò, di voi non vo' fidarmi" has that initial stress for all the right reasons. Sorry to make this so long, but the facts of this matter would be easily discovered by someone who took 5 minutes to read about these two choruses instead of just supplying their opinion.
There is no joke here. This is a biblical metaphor signifying how we turn away from obeying God. Rather, we have gone astray led by satan.
If you read the full verse, it says "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6)
"All we like sheep have gone astray". This means we have all gone astray from obeying the Word of God. In other words, sinning. The analogy of sheep is used because in those times, they tended for the sheep and would usually go away from their master. This is why Jesus, in the New Testament says,
11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the
sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the
owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and
flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees
because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14 I
am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as
the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for
the sheep. 16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must
bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one
flock with one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves Me,
because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18 No one has
taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have
authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.
This commandment I received from My Father.” (John 10: 11-18)
"We have turned every one to his own way". Everyone has followed their own sinful paths instead of obeying God.
"And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." This means that the Lord has laid all our iniquities (sins) on Him, Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins. All we have to do is repent from our sins and believe on Him, our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is what it means by we have gone astray like sheep.
When your choir director said that Handel's english was not great, that is not entirely true. There would be no way his english would not be great and still write 42 operas, 29 oratorios, and 120+ cantatas. And even if his english really was not that great, then he would have quickly learned due to his immense emersion in hymns and vocal music.
In addition, George Handel did not write the words of the Messiah. Every word of the Messiah is directly taken from the inspired Word of God. See here.
I hope that helped you address your questions. Let me know if you need any more clarification!
My music history professor stated flat out that Handel's English text setting was just plain bad because of his poor understanding of the language, and this was his Exhibit A. There is also the Golf Song: "FORE! Unto us a child is born!"
I think he could have done better: "All WE, like SHEEP, like SHEEP have gone astray" but that's just my opinion. Perhaps he liked the tune too much to change it to suit the words.
I wondered whether the word "like" had a slightly different meaning back then (back when "to want" meant "to lack", not "to desire") so I looked it up in Johnson's Dictionary of 1755. It had the same meanings as now, with quotes from Shakespeare and Dryden. Some people liked the city and some liked the country; some liked horses and some liked sheep.
So how do you figure out whether Handel did it as a joke?
As far as I know, Handel and Bach and their contemporaries simply did not put jokes into sacred works. Handel, as composer for the King, more likely had the conservative attitudes of Samuel Johnson than the radicalism of John Wilkes or Benjamin Franklin.
I would look for evidence in all the rest of Handel's religious works. If you can find anything else in any setting of Biblical text that seems to have been put in as a joke, then there is a possibility that the sheep thing is a joke, but I don't think you'll find anything. For that matter I can't think of a single joke in any sacred music by Joseph Haydn, and Haydn's time, though only a couple of decades later, was much more liberal, and Haydn loved his musical jokes.
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