of three movements: recitative, aria and chorus. The center of Part III is a sequence of six movements based on a passage from Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians on the resurrection of the dead, a passage that Brahms also chose for Ein deutsches Requiem. The movements marked "Recitative" (Rec.) are "secco", accompanied by only the continuo, whereas the recitatives marked "Accompagnato" (Acc.) are accompanied by additional string instruments. Handel used four voice parts, soprano (S), alto (A), tenor (T) and bass (B) in the solo and choral movements. Only once is the chorus divided in an upper chorus and a lower chorus, it is SATB otherwise. Handel uses both polyphon and homophon settings to illustrate the text. Even polyphon movements typically end on a dramatic long musical rest, followed by a broad homophon conclusion. Handel often stresses a word by extended coloraturas, especially in several movements which are a parody of music composed earlier on Italian texts. He uses a cantus firmus on long repeated notes especially to illustrate God's speech and majesty, for example "for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it" in movement 4. General notes The following tables are organized by movement numbers. There are two major systems of numbering the movements of Messiah: the historic Novello edition of 1959 (which is based on earlier editions and contains 53 movements), and the Bärenreiter edition of 1965 in the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe. Not counting some short recitatives as separate movements, it has 47 movements. The Novello number (Nov) is given first, then the Bärenreiter number (Bär). Part I Part II Part III Alternative movements Handel revised the work several times for specific performances. The alternative movements are part of the Bärenreiter edition, the Novello numbers are given in parentheses. References Sources Scores Deutsche Händelgesellschaft Edition, edited by Friedrich Chrysander, 1902 Novello Edition, edited by Watkins Shaw, first published in 1959, revised and issued 1965 Bärenreiter Edition, edited by John Tobin, published in 1965 Peters Edition, edited by Donald Burrows, vocal score published 1972 Handel's Messiah at the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities External links Georg Friedrich Händel / Messiah (1742) / A Sacred Oratorio / Words by Charles Jennens opera.stanford.edu George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) / Messiah Simon Heighes, for The Sixteen recording, 1997 Structure Christian music lists