In 1892 I gave a Handel festival in honor of the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the first performance of Handel’s “Messiah” in Dublin under his own direction, in 1742, followed by the one which King George II and his court attended, and when the crowd was so great that the management requested the gentlemen not to wear their swords nor the ladies their hoop-skirts, in order to enable as many as possible to hear the work of “Mr. Handel.” At this performance, when the Hallelujah chorus began, with its mighty climax, “King of Kings, Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” King George, overcome with emotion, arose and remained standing until the end. Naturally the entire audience rose in imitation of their royal master, and Great Britain has continued this custom ever since. As this was a fitting homage both to the Almighty and to the composer who in this chorus so marvellously voiced man’s adoration for him, my father introduced the custom at his own first performance of the “Messiah,” in 1874, and the Oratorio Society audiences have followed it to this day. An interesting account of the kind of orchestra Handel may have employed is given in a description of a memorial service of the “Messiah,” sung in Westminster Abbey shortly after his death. I decided to reproduce such an orchestra as far as possible at our festival performance. The main characteristics consisted in the doubling up of the string parts in the choruses with oboes and bassoons and in duplicating the trumpets and kettledrums in the choral climaxes. The effect of this was most remarkable. I had placed an additional oboe with every three violins and an additional bassoon for every three violoncellos, with a few contrabassoons and contrabass clarinets to strengthen the double-basses and to take the part of the serpent—an instrument which has become obsolete. The doubling up of trumpets and kettledrums in the climaxes did not make them sound louder, but more full. For the first time in my experience the sound of the orchestra was not completely buried in the avalanche of tone from a large chorus of three hundred and fifty voices. The orchestral accompaniments supported and supplemented the chorus in a way that perhaps only a very large and mellow church organ might.