Charles Jennens

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Charles Jennens; painting by Mason Chamberlin the elder.
Charles Jennens; painting by Mason Chamberlin the elder.

Charles Jennens (1700/01 – 20 November 1773) was an English landowner and patron of the arts, who assembled the text for Handel's oratorios Messiah and Saul, and is thought to have done the same for Handel's Israel in Egypt.

Some scholars attribute Messiah's emphasis on the Old Testament – and choice of the Old Testament title "Messiah" – to Jennens' theological choices.[1]

He was born in Leicestershire and educated at Balliol College, Oxford.

A portrait of Charles Jennens by Thomas Hudson is currently on display in Handel House Museum in London.

[edit] Sources

Ruth Smith, "Jennens, Charles (1700/01–1773)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 16 Sept 2006

[edit] References

  1. ^ Clifford Bartlett. Introduction, Oxford Choral Works edition of Messiah. Oxford University Press, 1998.
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