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How composer Handel's 'Messiah' came to be
Editor's note: This segment was rebroadcast on Dec. 24, 2025. Find that audio here.
Host Scott Tong gets the behind-the-scenes story of the creation of George Frideric Handel's "Messiah" with Georgetown professor Charles King, author of the new book "Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah."
Book excerpt: 'Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel’s Messiah'
By Charles King
From "Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel’s Messiah" by Charles King. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Charles King.
This segment aired on December 23, 2024.