Handel & Haydn Society

Since its establishment in Boston during 1815, the Handel and Haydn Society—commonly known as H&H—has played a central part in advancing classical music across the United States. No other performing arts body in the nation has sustained uninterrupted activity for a longer span. A committee of wealthy Boston merchants formed the organization, after which its professional component steadily grew; many initial participants were tradespeople who also sang in neighborhood church choirs. As its title suggests, the ensemble concentrates on eighteenth-century repertoire while also presenting large-scale choral-orchestral pieces that emerged during the nineteenth century. Jonas Chickering, the piano manufacturer, served as an early president, and Julia Ward Howe, composer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, numbered among its notable nineteenth-century members.

The group presented the first American performances of Handel’s Messiah in 1818, Haydn’s Creation the next year, Verdi’s Requiem in 1878, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in 1879. Beethoven apparently received a commission for an oratorio in the mid-1820s, yet the work was never completed. More than two thousand performances have taken place since the founding. In addition to its cherished annual presentations of familiar pieces—Messiah has been given every year since 1854—the Society has commemorated major occasions such as the close of the Civil War with concerts and festivals. During the twentieth century the combined roster of singers and orchestral players increased to well over two hundred before shrinking somewhat amid the Depression and World War II.

As the historical-performance movement gained ground in the mid-twentieth century, the Handel and Haydn Society largely disregarded it and drew criticism for that stance. Music director Thomas Dunn, who led from 1967 to 1986, began integrating historically informed practices, converting the ensemble into a fully professional organization and extending its repertory from the Renaissance to the present day. These developments continued under Christopher Hogwood (1986–2001), the Society’s first non-American director, Grant Llewellyn (2001–2006), and especially Harry Christophers (2009–2022), who also directs the Sixteen.

Under Christophers the group launched a recording program consistent with its stature, releasing discs each year on the Sixteen’s Coro label that encompass choral works as well as a series devoted to Haydn’s instrumental music. In 2018 it issued two albums, each containing pieces by Haydn and Mozart. The following year it was announced that Christophers would retire after the 2020–2021 season, though the coronavirus shutdowns postponed that departure by one year. In 2021 the Society appeared on a recording of Mozart’s Violin Concertos, directed from the violin by its concertmaster and soloist, Aisslinn Nosky.