Usually, when a song becomes a hit, it lasts for a few months to a year at most—unless it becomes a “classic.” A group will come out with a hit, sell lots of cds, tour, make lots of young girls go nuts over them, and then fizzle out as yesterday’s news—the sounds of the past, no longer “in.”

But imagine a piece of music that is really a classic. One that has been around for over 250 years—never losing popularity.

Even if you rarely listen to classical music, you’ve probably heard of it. If you’ve heard of the composer—Handel, it’s probably because of this work, Messiah, or at least the well-known “Hallelujah” chorus at the end of Part II.

This great work was not as enthusiastically received as we may naturally suppose. Handel faced more opposition than he did with probably any other composition. Yet, it lives on today as the most performed oratorio ever written.

It was the late 1730’s. George Frideric Handel, a great composer of Italian opera, was going through a rough time. He had lived in London, England, since 1710 when Italian opera was popular among the British. But by the ’30s, Italian opera’s popularity was waning.

What was Handel to do? Well, he could always write oratorios. An oratorio is a story set to music, like an opera, yet with no scenery, costumes or staging. It is usually religious in nature. Oratorios became popular in England because, according to tradition, these were the only type of musical drama that could be performed during Lent. (Opera performances were prohibited during this solemn period.)

Between 1739 and 1741, Handel’s oratorios Saul and Israel in Egypt didn’t meet with success at the box office. Still recovering from a serious stroke and facing financial demise, Handel was nearly forced to return to his native land, Germany, after making England his home for 30 years. (He had become a naturalized British citizen in 1727.)

One of Handel’s friends, Charles Jennens, had a collection of scriptures which he wanted Handel to set to music as an oratorio. It was about the Messiah—Jesus Christ. The text was a compilation of certain passages from the Holy Bible about Christ’s birth, rejection, suffering, death, resurrection and Second Coming.

Handel was so inspired by the text that he began to work on it immediately. Only 24 days later, Sept. 14, 1741, Handel was finished with the 2½-hour masterpiece.

The next April, Messiah was first performed in Dublin, Ireland, to a crowd of 700. (The hall only had room for 600. In fact, newspapers announced that ladies should not wear “hooped” dresses and that the men should not wear swords—in order to squeeze more people into the hall.) After enjoying several more sold-out performances, Handel’s oratorio was hailed as “the greatest music ever heard.”

But this was Dublin. In London, rumors about the work began drawing criticism. Handel made several changes to the score, until he finally decided to chance a performance of it in London. It was performed in 1743 and 1745—each time meeting with failure. It didn’t matter that King George ii was highly enthusiastic about Handel’s composition. (He even stood in admiration during the chorus “Hallelujah” because it stirred him so much—today, audiences still stand during this number because of the king’s action.)

Handel renamed the work A Sacred Oratorio, hoping that would appease some of the critics. The performance in London’s Theatre Royal in Covent Garden stirred the longstanding dispute over whether sacred texts should be sung in a theater. This provoked charges of blasphemy.

Handel persisted, though. He would not let die what he knew to be a great work. Several years later, after revising it considerably and reverting back to its original title, Messiah, the aging composer—whose prestige had been regained with other appealing compositions—scheduled a charity concert on May 1, 1750, in the chapel of the Foundling Hospital to benefit its children.

It was this performance that won Handel public acceptance of the work. By the end of his life in 1759, it had become his most performed oratorio. It has enjoyed uninterrupted popularity ever since.

The naturalized Englishman was buried in Westminster Abbey—a cathedral where some of England’s most prestigious historical figures are buried.

If it weren’t for Handel’s persistence—and perhaps God’s intervention—Messiah would have probably vanished in the hall of musical flops instead of living on to be one of the most celebrated choral works in all man’s history.

What makes Messiah so great? Give it a good listen. Buy a recording for your musical library—listen, follow along with the story and text written in here, and you’ll see why this work has topped the choral charts for over 250 years.

We recommend the 2008 Messiah recording by the The Sixteen, available on iTunes here and Amazon here.