Charles Jennens

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Charles Jennens; painting by Mason Chamberlin the elder.

Charles Jennens (1700 – 20 November 1773) was an English landowner and patron of the arts, who assembled the text for five of Handel's oratorios: Saul, Israel in Egypt, L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, Messiah, and Belshazzar. He lived at Gopsall, till 1747 together with his father, unmarried, melancholic and extravagant. His neighbours called him Suleyman the Magnificent. Lord Guernsey was his cousin.

Jennens was born in Leicestershire and educated at Balliol College, Oxford.^[1] Jennens became a Nonjuror, interested in "primitive Christianity" and John Chrysostom. He was friendly with Edward Holdsworth, sending the poet and classical scholar letters. Jennens was an anti-Deist, in those days very popular. A book by Richard Kidder influenced him. In regards to the libretto of Messiah, some scholars attribute Messiah's emphasis on the Old Testament – and choice of the Old Testament title "Messiah" – to Jennens' theological choices.^[2]

Jennens owned scores of many operas, he already subscribed in 1725, and added corrections, base figures, rejected pieces and dates.^[3] Jennens had an interesting collection of books by Shakespeare, on philology and theology.^[4] Today many of his books can be found in the Henry Watson Music Library in Manchester. A portrait of Charles Jennens by Thomas Hudson is currently on display in Handel House Museum in London.

[edit] References

^ Ruth Smith, "Jennens, Charles (1700/01–1773)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 16 Sept 2006.
^ Clifford Bartlett. Introduction, Oxford Choral Works edition of Messiah. Oxford University Press, 1998.
^ Winton Dean (2006) Handels operas (1726-1741), p. 122, 278, 302, 310.
^ Tassilo Erhardt, Händels Messiah. Text, Musik, Theologie, Comes Verlag, Bad Reichenhall 2007, ISBN 9783888205002.