What do Dublin and Halle have in common? Georg Friedrich Handel, writes Liam McAuley
Now that the daft notion of twinning Dublin with Beijing seems to have gone away, here's a much better idea for the wise men and women of Dublin Corporation to consider. Why not twin Dublin with Halle? "With where?" I hear you say. With Halle, in eastern Germany - or, to give the place its full title, Halle an der Saale, in the province of Saxony-Anhalt.
On the face of it, newly affluent Dublin, adrift between Boston and Berlin, has little in common with a landlocked city of 250,000 people, 200 kilometres south-west of the German capital, still coping with the aftermath of the Communist era and the stresses of national reunification. But they do have something - or rather someone - extraordinary in common: Georg Friedrich Handel.
The great man was born in Halle in 1685; and 57 years later, in Dublin, on April 13th, 1742, he gave the first performance of his masterpiece, Messiah. So Handel unwittingly put both cities on the international musical map.
The Halle-Dublin connection has been barely acknowledged over the centuries, but there are signs that a link is beginning to be forged. Tonight in Halle, for example, about 250 amateur choristers from 10 nations - including Japan, Israel, the US, Britain and several European countries - will gather on the stage of the spacious, modern Georg Friedrich Handel Hall for a performance of Messiah, cheerily subtitled "Happy Birthday Handel". (The composer's actual birthday was February 23rd, but what's a week between friends after 317 years?)
Among their ranks will be 50 Irish singers - 30 from Galway and 20 members of Our Lady's Choral Society, Dublin, best known for pre-Christmas performances of Messiah at the National Concert Hall, and for annual outdoor renditions from the oratorio in Fishamble Street, to mark the anniversary of the historic première on the actual site. Adding a significant piece of solder to the link, tonight's performance in Halle will be conducted by Dubliner Proinnsías Ó Duinn, who is music director of Our Lady's Choral Society, as well as principal conductor of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.
"Happy Birthday Handel" is the brainchild of Max von Arnim, an enterprising, young tour operator specialising in the cultural attractions of the area. Handel has drawn visitors to Halle for many years - and since 1952, the city has hosted a Handel Festival each summer, featuring operas, oratorios and orchestral and instrumental works performed by internationally renowned singers and musicians. But von Arnim saw the opportunity to establish a more populist, participatory event, to draw music-loving visitors to the city at a slack time of year.
He engaged the eminent English conductor Sir David Willcocks to direct the first two "Happy Birthday Handel" performances, in 2000 and 2001. Two years ago, he came to Dublin to publicise the event, and took in the Fishamble Street performance by Our Lady's Choral Society. Impressed by the spirit and vigour of the occasion, and attracted by the Dublin connection, he decided to ask Proinnsías Ó Duinn to take over the rostrum in Halle in succession to Willcocks.
As someone who has long called for greater recognition of Handel's unique contribution to Dublin's cultural history, Ó Duinn is keen to explore the possibilities of the link with Halle. But he is leery of anything that smacks of a "singalong" approach to Messiah and insists he "will not compromise the work" by adopting slower tempi to accommodate inexperienced or diffident choristers.
This is an ambitious undertaking; tonight he will be directing singers from many different choirs and many different musical cultures, some of whom have come individually, others in groups. The only requirement for participation is "to have sung Messiah before". He will have had just two three-hour rehearsals with them - yesterday and this afternoon - and the Orchestra of the Halle Opera House will be present only for the second of these. But anyone familiar with this conductor's Messiah performances at the NCH would expect the choruses in Halle tonight to be driven along at the sort of brisk speeds that emphasise the drama of the work - and that Handel himself would probably have favoured.
"My intention is to achieve a musically good performance," Ó Duinn says, "not just one that gives the choristers a good time or is a commercial success for the organisers."
Visitors to Halle soon notice signs of both stagnation and recovery. The facades of many buildings are cracked and peeling; weeds peek through fissured pavements.There are smart, pedestrianised shopping streets in the city centre, with a range of international stores, coffee bars and fast-food outlets, like those in any west European city. But even here, an occasional derelict premises stands cheek by jowl with a new or lately refurbished neighbour, like a hobo at a cocktail party.
A visitor knowing nothing of the place's association with Handel is unlikely to remain ignorant for long. The broad central square, the Marktplatz, is overlooked by a bronze statue of the composer, and just a two-minute walk away is the Handel House, where he was born, the son of a wealthy doctor. The house has been beautifully restored as a museum, concert venue, and centre for musicological research.
Handel lived here until he was 18. Then, despite his father's wish for him to become a lawyer, he left Halle to pursue his musical ambitions, first at the opera house in Hamburg, then in Italy, and finally in London. It was there that he composed most of his 40 operas and 30 oratorios, enjoyed his greatest successes (except for Messiah) and spent the last 49 years of his life. But he maintained his family and social ties in Halle and returned to visit his home city on up to a dozen occasions.
In Handel's day, Halle's prosperity still depended on the salt springs around which the town first grew up in the 13th century. But the city today bears far more visible traces of its role as a major centre of the chemical industry between the second World War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The skyline is dotted with the grimy brick smoke-stacks of factories - many of them derelict, closed in recent years because of failure to compete with more efficient plants in the western cities, or to comply with pollution controls.
Even more striking is the visitor's first sighting of Halle-Neustadt, the "new city" built in the East-German era to house factory workers. This forest of tall, bleak apartment blocks was home to 150,000 people, but an estimated 60,000 of them have left since reunification.
The city's plan is to renew the core of Halle-Neustadt, while encouraging residents on its perimeter to move to the old city, where many empty houses and apartment blocks are being modernised.
As both a business centre and a tourist attraction, Halle is outshone by its near neighbour Leipzig, with its book fair and its world famous Gewandhaus Orchestra.
Halle people are conscious of this, "but not in a grudging way", according to von Arnim. "Our proximity to Leipzig is probably seen as an advantage, because it should generate more jobs." Industrial regeneration is the main engine for growth, but tourism can play an important role; and in this region, the magnets are cultural. Leipzig can boast of associations with Bach, Mendelssohn and Goethe; nearby Wittenberg was central to Luther's Reformation.
All such concerns should be far from the minds of those in the Georg Friedrich Handel Hall tonight, as the dark opening chords of Messiah's overture begin the journey towards the brightness of the exuberant final "Amen". But it is only fitting that the masterpiece which - ever since its first performances in aid of the Dublin poor - has brought material as well as spiritual aid to countless people around the world, should benefit its creator's home place as it emerges from a troubled era. It would surely be fitting, too, for the city where Messiah was first heard to extenda hand of friendship.
This year's Handel Festival in Halle, runs from June 7th to 16th.Website: www.haendelfestspiele.halle.de
Happy Birthday Handel 2003 will be held from February 21st to 23rd next year. Website: www.happy-birthday-handel.de
Messiah in the Street: Our Lady's Choral Society will perform extracts from Messiah in Fishamble Street, Dublin, on Saturday, April 13th at 1 p.m.