The piece
The Hallelujah chorus closes the second part of Messiah, the oratorio Handel wrote in a few weeks in London in the summer of 1741, first performed in Dublin in April 1742. The four-part chorus alternates shouts of "Hallelujah" with the line "For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth", sung first in unison. This easy version, written for Noctave, keeps the orchestra's introduction, then the sopranos' melody over the basses' line, note for note, and ends with the chorus's last bars.
Both hands nearly always play the same rhythm, which makes reading simpler: a dotted quarter followed by three eighths, then the "Hallelujahs" in eighths and sixteenths. The two repeated sixteenths should stay crisp and light, at the same tempo as the rest, without rushing into the next beat. In the introduction, the left hand moves in even eighths while the right plays the first violins' part. Keep a full but clear forte sound, without pounding the keys.
