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656. How Handel Got His Mojo Back
00:57:13
When he wrote “Messiah” (in 24 days), Handel was past his prime and nearly broke. One night in Dublin changed all that. (Part two of “Making ‘Messiah.'”)
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- [00:01]
Stephen Dubner
Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by NYQUIL Intense Flu flu symptoms don't keep business hours. They like to show up at night interrupting your sleep. Nyquil Intense Flu helps shut them down. Specially formulated to ease flu and cold symptoms, it is the nighttime sniffling, aching, aching fever. Best sleep with the flu medicine delivering fast, powerful flu symptom relief for up to 6 hours. Nyquil intense flu works overnight so you can sleep. Try NYQUIL Intense Flu today. Use as directed. Keep out of reach of children. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Mint Mobile. Turn your expensive wireless present into a wireless savings future. Shop Mint unlimited plans@mintmobile.com freak limited time offer upfront payment of $45 for 3 month, $90 for 6 month or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term may slow when network is busy Capable device required availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. In part one of the series, we visited Dublin, the unlikely site of George Friedrich Handel's first performance of Messiah. I say unlikely because Handel lived in London, the capital of the music world. Dublin was far away and relatively provincial, and Handel was a longtime superstar, hugely popular as both composer and performer with a royal patronage on the side. So why did he decide to go all the way to Dublin to put on a series of concerts? Well, because they asked and importantly, they offered to pay. The Irish would cover all his expenses and Handel would get a cut of the ticket sales. Except, interestingly for Messiah. That was the one new composition he was bringing to Dublin, and it would be performed as a charity event. In any case, In November of 1741, an aging and not very healthy Handel left for Dublin. The first leg of the trip would take several days, traveling by horse drawn coach up to Chester, an old city in the north of England. From there he would take a shorter coach ride up to a ferry port on the English coast. The the ferry would take another day or three, depending on the wind, to get across the Irish Sea to Dublin. But his trip didn't go exactly as planned. When he arrived in Chester, he learned that the Irish Sea was so rough that he couldn't get a ferry for at least a few days. So Handel had to hunker down in Chester for a bit. We decided to go to Chester for ourselves to see what that might have been like.
- [02:53]
Philip Rushforth
There was always this story about Messiah and Chester.
- [02:57]
Stephen Dubner
That is Philip Rushforth.
- [02:59]
Philip Rushforth
I lived in a house in Abbey street here that had a school in the back garden. It was a room that was rather like A chapel. And it was rumored that Handel had been in this room in order to rehearse some of Messiah.
- [03:13]
Stephen Dubner
That rumor left an impression on Philip Rushforth. He would go on to become the organist and master of the choristers at Chester Cathedral, which is where we have met him today. Has worked here for a few decades, but when you consider the cathedral itself, that's not very long. It was founded in 1092 as a Benedictine monastery. The current building dates back to the 1300s. And George Friedrich Handel arrived here in 1741.
- [03:41]
Philip Rushforth
The weather was poor, so he was delayed in Chester. He wanted some proof of his music that he'd written down. He wanted someone to sing it so he could hear it and see that what he'd written was correct, I assume. And he asked Edmund Baker, the organist of the cathedral at the time, if he had someone who could sight sing. Baker said, yes, I've got a man in the choir called Mr. Jansen. And Janson got it wrong. Quite significantly, I think. Handel shouted at Janson and said, you told me you could sing at sight. Jansen said, I can indeed, sir, but not at first sight. I thought it was quite a good comeback. If that's indeed what happened in your mind.
- [04:21]
Stephen Dubner
How much was Messiah developed here in Chester?
- [04:25]
Philip Rushforth
The story is that he was still working on it and hadn't finished it when he passed through Chester on his way to Dublin. But he must have been very close to the end if he knew that the premiere was happening in Dublin.
- [04:38]
Stephen Dubner
There is an organist practicing in the cathedral sanctuary for a concert that evening. So Rushforth walks us through the sanctuary.
- [04:49]
Philip Rushforth
This is where the monk's dormitory used to be. The monks would descend down those stairs to worship eight or nine times a day, you know. And this is our main rehearsal space. In here you can see where the medieval wall finishes and where new begins.
- [05:07]
Stephen Dubner
And now we are in a quiet modern rehearsal room with a piano.
- [05:12]
Philip Rushforth
Shall I just play a little bit? Yeah.
- [05:13]
Stephen Dubner
Tell us what we're going to hear.
- [05:14]
Philip Rushforth
We're going to hear the interlude. I suppose you call it the Pastoral Symphony from Handel's Messiah.
- [05:19]
Stephen Dubner
No, he didn't call it Pastoral Symphony. He called it pifa.
- [05:22]
Ellen Harris
Correct?
- [05:22]
Philip Rushforth
P. That's right.
- [05:23]
Stephen Dubner
And what is pifa? What is that derived from?
- [05:25]
Philip Rushforth
I knew you were going to ask me that.
- [05:43]
Stephen Dubner
I looked it up later. Pifa comes from the Italian word pifferari. They were the shepherd musicians who used to play in the streets of Rome, especially around Christmas time. Shepherds are important all through Handel's Messiah as witnesses, as messengers, as allegories when did you first hear Messiah?
- [06:04]
Philip Rushforth
I would have been probably about 11, 12 years old.
- [06:09]
Stephen Dubner
And what kind of impression did it make?
- [06:11]
Philip Rushforth
I just thought that there was such vitality in all of the music. And being relatively young then, I just thought that it was supremely beautiful.
- [06:24]
Stephen Dubner
Today on Freakonomics Radio, how that supremely beautiful piece of music became Handel's salvation.
- [06:31]
Mark Reisinger
He had to exercise a certain amount of entrepreneurial muscle.
- [06:37]
Stephen Dubner
We'll hear how Handel got so good in the first place.
- [06:40]
Charles King
Scarlatti, one of his contemporaries, would always make the sign of the cross whenever Handel's name was mentioned.
- [06:46]
Stephen Dubner
We'll hear what producing operas did to him.
- [06:49]
Ellen Harris
He had 50 pounds left. He withdrew that and he had nothing.
- [06:54]
Stephen Dubner
And yes, we will hear about his comeback, because who doesn't love a good comeback story? Part two of our series, Making Messiah, starts now.
- [07:15]
Ellen Harris
This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything, with your host, Stephen Dubner.
- [07:33]
Stephen Dubner
Georg Friedrich Handel was born in 1685 in Halle, a city that today is in northeast Germany. Back then was part of Brandenburg Prussia. Johann Sebastian Bach was born nearby just a few weeks later.
- [07:47]
Mark Reisinger
They were exact contemporaries from the same part of Germany who tragically never met in person, but they were certainly aware of one another.
- [07:55]
Stephen Dubner
That is Mark Risinger. We met him in the previous episode. He's the one that sounds like this.
- [08:01]
Mark Reisinger
Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
- [08:10]
Stephen Dubner
Reisinger is a musicologist and a Handel specialist who teaches in New York City.
- [08:15]
Mark Reisinger
It's a bit of an axiom among singers that Bach, in many cases really does almost treat the voice like an instrument. It's hard to differentiate between the way he's writing for the violins versus the sopranos, Handel's music. By and large, that's not so much the case.
- [08:34]
Stephen Dubner
Bach was born into a pious family of important musicians. Handel's father was a barber surgeon. He cut hair but also limbs in need of amputation. His son, George Friedrich, began playing the organ when he was very young. Some scholars have argued that his father opposed his musical interests, but he seems to have received an excellent education.
- [08:57]
Mark Reisinger
He was lucky because he spent the first 18 years of his life in the Halle, which was a pretty important city commercially. I heard a fascinating paper only a couple of years ago at the American Handel Society Conference from a European scholar who has located some evidence about the amount of music publishing that went on and that was funneled through Halle. And it tells us a lot about the range of music from all over Europe that was probably available more Importantly, though, I think his teacher, Friedrich William Zachow, was well connected. He was a church musician who had a pretty substantial library of music himself, and he was choosing the music to give Handel as models to imitate in his early compositions, as well as the kinds of things that he needed to learn to play on the organ.
- [09:53]
Stephen Dubner
At age 18, Handel left Halle for.
- [09:55]
Mark Reisinger
Hamburg, and that is an important chapter because he spent time playing in the opera orchestra as well as learning to compose and encountering older musicians who exercised a fair amount of influence on him. One of the operas that he would have known there is the one that ultimately is the source for the aria. I Know My Redeemer liveth in Messiah. I Know My Redeemer Livth is part of a lineage of melodies that can be traced back all the way to a melody by Reinhard Kaiser that Handel would have encountered when he was in Hamburg as a late teenager playing in the opera orchestra there.
- [10:42]
Charles King
He's trying to make you feel something.
- [10:46]
Stephen Dubner
And that is Charles King, a political scientist at Georgetown and author of the book Every Valley. We heard from him in part one of the series as well. He is not a singer, but he is a very good explainer.
- [10:58]
Charles King
If you listen to enough Handel, you'll hear loads of recycling, which was very common at the time, stealing other people's chord progressions and melodic lines, also very common. I mean, if you found something that worked, why wouldn't you use it?
- [11:11]
Stephen Dubner
You write about the period or the moment really, when Handel was discovered by a Medici who's come to Germany, I gather, to scout, right? To scout for musicians, performers, maybe composers. It reminded me of those stories you used to hear about Hollywood, like Lana Turner being discovered in a coffee shop or whatever. But just talk about how it was that Handel came to be in Italy in the first place.
- [11:37]
Charles King
Handel, in a way, had to get to Italy, I think, because the composer that he eventually becomes and the musician he eventually becomes really depended on his time there. We want to think of the courtly system in Italy at the time as one court trying to one up the other to acquire the best artists, the best musicians, perhaps not exclusively, but to have them for period of time or a season. And they would be paid with lodging and food and maybe in cash payments. And they would want someone who was not only entertaining, but who would increase the prestige of the court. Handel is acquired this way, likely by one of the Medici from Florence who see him performing and then he's invited to spend a period of time there. He's composing for secular audiences, by and large, whether it's the court of a prince or in an Italian opera house. And that, I think, gives a very different feel to all of Handel's music. That comes after he wants to have an effect on an audience. Handel develops this incredible reputation, so much so that Scarlatti, one of his contemporaries, would always make the sign of the cross whenever Handel's name was mentioned as this person who would just tear up a keyboard.
- [13:00]
Stephen Dubner
Handel had been in Italy for three years when he got a better offer back to Germany to become master of the choir for Prince George of Hanover. He took that job when he was 25, but he didn't stay long. An even brighter future beckoned in London. Here's Charles King.
- [13:17]
Charles King
London was just going crazy. This was the moment when the West End was developing both as new housing for a wealthier class. But it was the thing that would eventually, of course, become the theater district. And Handel was at the absolute center of that.
- [13:33]
Mark Reisinger
He had to exercise a certain amount of entrepreneurial muscle in his work in London.
- [13:41]
Stephen Dubner
That's Mark Reisinger again.
- [13:43]
Mark Reisinger
After he'd been in London for some time. He launched his Royal Academy in 1720 under the patronage of the King, under King George I. It was an opera company that was kind of a joint venture that people invested in and that the king also subsidized.
- [14:01]
Stephen Dubner
As someone like you, who knows this music well and knows the history of the music well, what cultures and countries and traditions do you hear? In other words, do you hear someone who was young in Germany and performed and heard the kind of music he heard in Germany with the training he had, and then went to Italy and did what he did there for several years and then went to London and got caught up in the culture there. Or is it not so distinguishable as that?
- [14:29]
Mark Reisinger
It's an interesting question. I think that if you were to take his first opera composed in his Hamburg years, we're talking around 1703, and compare it with the operas from the late 30s written in London around the time that he was sort of winding down. You would notice a big difference in the fluidity of his melodic style, the angularity of harmonic progressions in the early works. Things just. They didn't have the same kind of flow of harmonic grammar and syntax until he made it to Italy and was becoming familiar with the Italian style. So he still remained himself, but his style is rather cosmopolitan.
- [15:21]
Charles King
Handel is certainly traveling from one culture to the next and one place to the next and without really knowing what's going to be there for him. So he's a risk taker in his own life, just like he's a risk taker in his art. Handel's being an outsider is really essential to the story of his life as an artist. I think being a non native English speaker turns out to be really critical. Of course, he's multilingual already by the time that he arrives in Britain. And his English gets better and better. Although he'll have this German accent throughout his life that his friends, you know, always made fun of. But the, the thing he can hear is the rhythms of the language. So if you take something like the Hallelujah chorus, just that syncopated line, forever and ever and ever, it took a non native speaker, I think, to hear, oh, here's a natural rhythm to this set of words that perhaps others can't hear. One of the really terrific things I think in Messiah is that you have occasionally melodic lines that Handel has self plagiarized where he's taken something else, perhaps originally composed in another language like Italian, and then he'll set it to an English text. The most famous example of this is for unto us a child is born. When you listen to it, it goes for unto us a child is born with the emphasis on the word for. If you think about it for a moment, it's like, well, that's not at all the way we would speak that line. We might emphasize the word us or a child, you know, for unto us a child is born. But because Handel had taken it from an Italian duet, the first word of which was no and somebody emphasizing the word no at the beginning we get for unto us a child is born. But what could be more memorable than a misung line in English that we now think of as the obvious way to write that line.
- [17:21]
Stephen Dubner
Coming up after the break, have you.
- [17:23]
Ellen Harris
Ever heard Follow the money?
- [17:25]
Stephen Dubner
We look at the economics of being an 18th century pop star. I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio. We'll be right back. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Mint Mobile. Don't let big wireless and your overpriced phone bill suck the joy out of the holidays this year. Right now. Now all of Mint Mobile's Unlimited plans are 50% off. You can get 3, 6 or 12 months of unlimited premium wireless for 15 bucks a month. It's their best deal of the year and makes it easy for you to give your expensive wireless bill the Scrooge treatment. Turn your expensive wireless present into a huge wireless savings future by switching to Mint shop. Mint unlimited plans@mintmobile.com freq that's mintmobile.com freak freak limited time offer upfront payment of $45 for 3 month, $90 for 6 month or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only over 35 GB may slow when network is busy. Capable device required Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Zapier these days seems like everyone is talking about AI, but let's face it, talking about trends doesn't help you be more efficient at work. For that you need the right tools. You need Zapier. Zapier is how you break the hype cycle and put AI to work across your company for real. With Zapier you can actually deliver on your AI strategy, not just talk about it. With Zapier's AI orchestration platform, you can bring the power of AI to any workflow so you can do more of what matters. Connect top AI models to the tools your team already uses so you can add AI exactly where you need it. Whether that's AI powered workflows, an autonomous agent or a customer chatbot, you can orchestrate it with Zapier. Zapier is for everyone, tech expert or not. Join the millions of businesses transforming how they work with Zapier and AI. Get started for free by visiting zapier.com freakonomics that's Z-A P I E R.com Freakonomics Freakonomics radio is sponsored by Capital One with no fees or minimums on checking accounts. It's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC. Tell me why you love Handel's music so much.
- [20:26]
Ellen Harris
Well, I love it because it expresses emotion, I think in such beautiful and humane ways. I find it difficult when I listen to Handel not to feel the emotion that he is expressing.
- [20:40]
Stephen Dubner
Where does Messiah rank for you personally?
- [20:42]
Ellen Harris
It's a musical work of enormous beauty and power that brings you through an emotional journey that gives you peace and a feeling of redemption. It has a lifespring to it that.
- [21:00]
Stephen Dubner
Is the musicologist Ellen Harris.
- [21:02]
Ellen Harris
I'm a Handel scholar and have written on Handel's finances, on Handel's cantatas in Italy, on his life in London. I do like to joke that Handel is my man. My husband does. Let me. So that's okay.
- [21:17]
Stephen Dubner
Of all the Handel researchers and biographers through the years, you seem to have taken things to a whole different level, especially trying to understand Handel's finances. As an entrepreneur, which he was, and a performer, which he was, and an investor, which he was. What made you pursue those avenues in addition to the music avenues?
- [21:41]
Ellen Harris
I did have a colleague early on say to me, why are you spending so much time at the bank of England? And why aren't you looking at the music? And I said, well, have you ever heard Follow the Money? Essentially, if we really understood Handel's finances, you would understand much more about his life and work. And it was also enthralling, actually, to go to the bank of England and to sit in their archive and call up these ledgers from the 18th century that are enormous volumes. Some of them are 4, even 5 inches thick. And there's Handel's account. Then there are transfer volumes where every transaction is registered and you needed to sign.
- [22:27]
Stephen Dubner
And there's Handel's signature.
- [22:28]
Ellen Harris
There's Handel's signature in these ledgers.
- [22:31]
Stephen Dubner
Describe him as a person, if you and I happen to be around back then. What's his reputation? What does he look like, what does he enjoy, what does he not enjoy? How public is he, et cetera?
- [22:42]
Ellen Harris
He's a big man. He's tall, unusually tall for the age. Good looking, as one can see from his younger portraits. He, of course, gained a good deal of weight as he got older. He's described as walking with kind of a lope. He was very genial with friends, but a curmudgeon frequently in regard to his music. He was known to have a short temper, so you didn't want to get on the bad side of him.
- [23:12]
Stephen Dubner
Was Handel a good time guy? Did he like a party? Did he like a drink?
- [23:16]
Ellen Harris
He seems to have, yes. There are stories about him and his friend Joseph Goopy, who was a scene painter for him and also an independent artist, going off and having drinking parties with one of their patrons. But also they went off to Europe together at one point. And one of the Handel's admirers said that he had hoped that Handel would be going to a spa. But now there was no hope for improvement since he was traveling with Goopy. So that does give you some sense of their reputation.
- [23:50]
Stephen Dubner
Is your sense that he was a bachelor devoted to his work? Is your sense that he was maybe gay in a time when that was not so easy? Especially with his royal patronage, perhaps? What is your sense Generally of his romantic.
- [24:08]
Ellen Harris
I cannot speak to Handel's sexuality. What he did in his bedroom, I have no idea. I doubt that he was actively homosexual in the sense of the homosexual clubs and things that existed in the 18th century. Because he was too public a figure. And that probably would be known. When he chose people to be really close to in a personal way, they were men. There was a kind of community that he felt with other men. And I don't have any sense of him having any relationships with women.
- [24:45]
Stephen Dubner
How religious, how pious was Handel?
- [24:49]
Ellen Harris
Handel went to church weekly. He was a member of the St. George Hanover Square Church. He had his own pew. He was a Lutheran, of course. There was an attempt to convert him to Catholicism in Italy, which he refused. Lots of people didn't. But Handel refused and apparently said that he would rather live and die in the religion to which he was born, whether right or wrong. The sense of maintaining his Lutheran ties, I think is interesting, given there was a Lutheran Chapel at St. James's Palace. Because the royal family worshipped as Lutherans. There was synergy between the royal family and Handel in their Lutheran background, which is why some of his religious works have chorales in them. You have to always remember with Handel that he had this extraordinary benefit, which was a pension from the royal coffers.
- [25:50]
Stephen Dubner
I think a lot of people, when they hear pension, they think of something to take care of you in retirement. But this is basically a monthly stipend.
- [25:55]
Ellen Harris
Yes, stipend is a good word for it. And he got his first royal stipend in 1712 from Queen Anne. When George came over in 1714, continued it immediately. And then in 1723, added 200 additional pounds for work with the Chapel Royal. And then another 200 pounds for teaching the royal children, the grandchildren. And that 600 pounds was continued throughout his life, even long after the royal grandchildren were grown.
- [26:31]
Stephen Dubner
And that just was sent to him directly rather than the bank.
- [26:34]
Ellen Harris
He would go and pick it up, actually.
- [26:37]
Stephen Dubner
So that was his living expense.
- [26:38]
Ellen Harris
Yes, that is correct. He had the opportunity, because of the pension, I think, to experiment and to say no to people that other composers did not have.
- [26:56]
Charles King
He was trying to figure out, how do I put my own art on a firmer foundation? And there were lots of things that he tried.
- [27:04]
Stephen Dubner
That again, is Charles King.
- [27:06]
Charles King
His day job was receiving a salary from the British court. He works for a while for what is one of the first joint stock companies to be involved in opera production. He was also the first composer in Britain to assert copyright to his compositions. We know from his bank receipts that he wasn't particularly good at always collecting on those rights or the rights of publication, for example, and piracy of intellectual property was sort of the norm in this period. But he did have income from the published manuscripts that he managed to put out into the world. So in all of these ways, but he's figuring out how is art not only a thing that inspires or that entertains, but that also provides an income not only for himself, but for the people he cared about, friends and family.
- [27:57]
Stephen Dubner
Do we know anything about any financial or economic mentors?
- [28:01]
Charles King
Oh, that's such a good question.
- [28:03]
Stephen Dubner
Because as you describe him, he's fairly sophisticated and certainly more sophisticated than most people who make music for a living.
- [28:10]
Charles King
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think this is a place where patronage and Handel's innovation really come together. He's not the one who's organizing the joint stock company or worrying about the legal instruments that will be required to set this up. But he is closely connected with all of the people who very much are in this world who have the wherewithal, the means and the legal contacts to create the structures that allow Handel to succeed. Theaters had to worry about how you sell tickets. Theaters had to worry about paying the musicians, the artists, the folks who were designing the sets, the copyists who were creating the parts for the musicians in the pit or the equivalent. And so Handel, from very early on, is acutely aware of the economic and business side of entertainment in a way that perhaps some of his contemporaries who relied on noble patronage were not.
- [29:06]
Ellen Harris
Ellen Harris, again, King George had given the opera company a warrant for the production of operas for 21 years. It's 1720-1741, and it's clear that Handel felt he needed to fulfill this obligation.
- [29:23]
Stephen Dubner
Handel's operas were popular with the London audience, but there were challenges, including a rival company, the Opera of the Nobility. That one was started by King George's son, Frederick, the Prince of Wales. So they had deep pockets and Handel had to compete with them over talent.
- [29:39]
Ellen Harris
Italian singers with whom he had difficulty, they were extraordinarily expensive. They frequently didn't want to sing what he wrote for them. They're very funny anecdotes. He had the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni rehearsing one of the first operas that she sang with him. He rehearsed in his house. He would play the harpsichord and they would sing. And she did not wanna sing this aria. It's just very beautiful. It isn't an exact quote, but it's a story that he said, well, you may be the greatest she devil, but I am Beelzebub and threatened to throw her out the window. He also had a tenor once who refused to sing an aria and said that if he was made to sing the aria that he would jump into the harpsichord. Handel apparently responded because he had a really good sense of the entrepreneur. He said, please let me know ahead of time because I will advertise it. More people will come to see you jump than will come to hear you sing. But of course, the opera of the nobility got Farinelli, the greatest castrato of the era, and Handel had tried repeatedly to hire him and had been unable to get him.
- [30:56]
Stephen Dubner
But it wasn't just the singers. There were sets to build, costumes to create, and because Handel was fond of spectacle, there were occasionally fireworks.
- [31:06]
Ellen Harris
Running an opera company anywhere is a very difficult proposition. It's a very expensive art form. It's very difficult to run one, much less two major opera companies. The opera companies he had been engaged with the Royal Academy of music from 1720, and then his own company from 1728. And then the opera nobility comes in and begins competing with him in 1732, repeatedly. The opera company was running out of.
- [31:35]
Stephen Dubner
Money, and that's primarily because opera is just so expensive to produce.
- [31:40]
Ellen Harris
Well, opera's very expensive to produce. And as a result, I think he stopped receiving salary. He was not able to build up any kind of cash fund for himself. During the early years of the Royal Academy, he was receiving into his annuities account at the bank of England approximately £700 a year.
- [32:00]
Stephen Dubner
Today, that would be the equivalent of around $165,000.
- [32:04]
Ellen Harris
I think we can take that to be his salary from the Royal Academy of music. In 1728, it went bankrupt, and then a new company was formed. Handel continued getting £700 a year for a while, but in 1732, it all ended and suddenly he sold all of the annuity account. He opened a cash account with what he had left that was in the vicinity of £2,000. Over the next years, he kept withdrawing money year after year, until in 1738, he had £50 left. He withdrew that and he had nothing. Between 1739 and 1743, he had no accounts at all in the bank of England. He had run out of salary, basically. Ultimately, his accounts were reduced to nothing, and then he had nothing in the bank.
- [32:57]
Stephen Dubner
So he was in bad shape financially. But that wasn't all.
- [33:00]
Ellen Harris
He began having serious health problems in 1737. He had a major, what is called a paralytic attack. So his health, I think, was increasingly problematic. And as soon as he wrote that opera in 1741, which is Deodamia, he left town. He said that he was going to Dublin and looking forward to it and not having anything to do anymore with the people who were, you know, meddling with opera.
- [33:34]
Charles King
He had received an invitation to come to Dublin to do a series of concerts. He'd never been to Ireland before, but if things were going well, he might stick around to the spring. But all of this was sort of up in the air.
- [33:46]
Stephen Dubner
That again is Charles King.
- [33:48]
Charles King
And the only new thing that he had with him was this composition called Messiah, which he had composed the music for on the basis of this text written by his friend Charles Jennings. Bible verses, not in the right order, set to the conventions of Italian opera. This was not a recipe for success. Handel composed this thing really because he was looking for something new to offer on what amounted to a greatest hits tour. When any artist starts doing a greatest hits tour, that's probably not a great sign about what the arc of their artistic career is like.
- [34:25]
Stephen Dubner
Coming up after the break, how Dublin and Messiah changed everything for our friend George Friedrich Handel. I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio. We'll be right back. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Business Wars. In just a few years, Ozempic has gone from a diabetes drug to a global phenomenon. But behind the miracle claims, another battle is raging. Demand is exploding. Supply can't keep up. And as drug maker Novo Nordisk scrambles to produce more, its rival, Eli Lilly is racing to take the crown. Meanwhile, a dark, darker market is emerging. Shady online sellers are offering cheap, unregulated knockoffs. Now millions are injecting mystery vials with no FDA oversight. In their latest season, Business wars is diving into the race to Ozempic and the billion dollar showdown between big Pharma's biggest players. Can they close the supply gap before one bad vial destroys everything? Follow Business wars wherever you get your podcast. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by FedEx. The new power move. You know those people who still rely on old school business power moves, like showing up late to meetings because they're so busy. Or wearing a big shiny gold watch and making sure everyone notices. Maybe it's the person who takes long, dramatic pauses every time they speak because they're so profound. But let's be honest, all those old school power moves won't keep your supply chain moving smoothly. The real power move? Using Data insights from FedEx to move your business forward. Like using predictive analytics to manage your entire supply chain. Or calling out logistics problems before they arise, and sitting at the forefront of business intelligence. That's how FedEx helps modern businesses stay ahead, anticipating change, rerouting around challenges, and keeping everything running smoothly. The New power move. Visit fedex.com newpowermove to learn more. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Sylvania with Sylvania Seeing better while driving at night starts with you because headlight bulbs dim over time and can lose up to 50ft of visibility before burnout. So don't wait. Upgrade your drive with Sylvania Lights for better visibility on the road ahead. Sylvania's step by step installation guides make it easier than ever to take control of your nighttime clarity, all without a trip to the mechanic. So before a burnout darkens your day, upgrade to Sylvania and see better tonight. Handel's Messiah is full of melodies so rich that some people just can't help themselves.
- [37:21]
Ellen Harris
He trusted in God that he would deliver him, Let him deliver him if he delight in him.
- [37:31]
Stephen Dubner
That again, is the musicologist Ellen Harris.
- [37:35]
Ellen Harris
I just think it's one of the most spectacular choruses, but it's not one that people remember. They remember the Hallelujah Chorus, but I love this chorus.
- [37:44]
Stephen Dubner
I understand you gave some fairly serious consideration to becoming a professional singer when you were younger.
- [37:50]
Ellen Harris
Yes, yes.
- [37:51]
Stephen Dubner
Tell me about that, and about making the choice to become an academic as opposed to a professional singer.
- [37:57]
Ellen Harris
It's very simple, really. If you want to become a professional singer, you have to believe that you're the best. I didn't. I did have this wonderful professor at Brown University who said to me, well, Ellen, your voice is very good when you practice.
- [38:12]
Stephen Dubner
You didn't love to practice, I'm guessing.
- [38:15]
Ellen Harris
No, no, no. I sang when I felt like it. And the effort that has to go into maintaining a voice or any instrument, I mean, you're at it all the time. I just didn't think that that was really where I was headed. And I loved the research. The whole idea of working in an archive, a lot of the work I do frequently makes me feel like a detective. Because you can uncover things. You discover things in the archives.
- [38:50]
Stephen Dubner
I, too, like discovering things in the archives. Which now brings us to London. We've made George Frederick Handel's Messiah trip in reverse. We started in Dublin, then to Chester, and here we are now back in London, Handel's adopted hometown. He is well represented in a variety of archives here, including the British Library.
- [39:14]
Chris Scobie
So I'm Chris Scobie, British Library's curator for music manuscripts and archives. I've been working here since 2008 and in this role since 2017. You'll see in a moment. There's elements of it that are quite fragile and we need to be careful with. So every time it comes out of the storage, where it's temperature controlled, low humidity, there's things we need to be careful with that. We don't want to move it all the time. There's always risks involved in things like that. So this is the first manuscript that.
- [39:42]
Stephen Dubner
Was created, meaning by Handel's hand.
- [39:44]
Chris Scobie
In Handel's hand. Yeah. So it's known as the composing manuscript. So I'll open it up.
- [39:49]
Stephen Dubner
And can you just describe this beautiful book it's bound in?
- [39:52]
Chris Scobie
Yeah. This is a kind of red leather binding that's actually from the 1950s. It's quite a modern binding. And we've got the name of the piece, Messiah, an oratorio by Handel, original score.
- [40:05]
Stephen Dubner
And before it was bound in this, Was it bound elsewhere? Was it in loose pages?
- [40:08]
Chris Scobie
It would have been bound in something probably more like a marble boards kind of binding, which was typical of George III's library bindings.
- [40:17]
Stephen Dubner
Got it.
- [40:18]
Chris Scobie
So it's interesting. There's three or four different languages through here. Obviously English, the text that he's writing down. There's Italian for the typical tempo markings and sometimes movement headings and things like that. There's German, there's little bits of Latin.
- [40:31]
Stephen Dubner
What's this say here?
- [40:32]
Chris Scobie
So we've got a note being added afterwards here, part of the overture and the beginning of the rest. It's comfort ye my people are wanting.
- [40:48]
Stephen Dubner
I'm impressed you don't use the fancy gloves.
- [40:51]
Chris Scobie
Yes. So that's something we've been told specifically by consolation, not to use gloves for the simple reason you lose the ability to be tactile, to be careful, basically.
- [41:01]
Stephen Dubner
Meaning you might tear it, more likely with gloves.
- [41:03]
Chris Scobie
Clean hands are better than gloves. There's just less of a risk if I just jump forwards a little bit. I quite like this page from He Shall Purify to see how the work is going on. So we've got a phrase here with lots of semiquavers and one of these running passages. He's had to continue the stave lines off the end to capture the idea. So rather than going over the page, wiggly bar lines, not straight.
- [41:38]
Stephen Dubner
So he's extending the staff.
- [41:40]
Chris Scobie
Yeah. You kind of get the impression of working in the moment, having to create a bit more space because this is what you've got to get down on. Page. There's work going on here. There's the Dirt from work. There's the ink sort of smudging across things here as well. It's moving quickly. The notes are moving quickly. We've got lots of semiquavers. So the end sound is going to sound fast, but you can almost feel the speed of the ink on the page, the way the notes are tipping over more and more. They're kind of increasingly coming off center and tipping over to the right through the speed and perhaps enthusiasm of writing. And when you get the personal connection straight away, it's not just conveying the notes here, this personality jumps off the page.
- [42:28]
Stephen Dubner
I have to say, it's just awe inspiring to think that I'm here with the composer's manuscript in the British Library and I have a pen in my hand, just casually, because I've been taking notes like, yeah, I could.
- [42:39]
Chris Scobie
Yeah, you could.
- [42:40]
Stephen Dubner
Probably shouldn't do that.
- [42:42]
Chris Scobie
Pen away.
- [42:54]
Stephen Dubner
Scobie now turns to the most famous page of the original Messiah manuscript, a page that is stained by a massive ink spill. Oh, yeah. But it looks like they really wiped quickly and preserved what was underneath.
- [43:09]
Chris Scobie
Yeah. So what's interesting about this is actually, if you go to the page before this is what's covered by the ink. It's the same music, but it's not in Handel's hand. And I'm reliably informed, I think you can tell from these little stainings in each corner that this copied page would have been attached over the ink spill.
- [43:32]
Stephen Dubner
You're saying that the spill happened, someone wiped the music beneath it was visible, but someone recopied the page.
- [43:39]
Chris Scobie
Exactly, yeah.
- [43:39]
Stephen Dubner
And not him.
- [43:40]
Chris Scobie
Not him, no. It's been fairly well established by various generations of Handel scholars that this isn't Handel's handwriting, this bit. Which leads us to think that maybe the ink spill actually happened during the copying for the conducting score. Things like these details aren't really known for sure. It's kind of piecing together what evidence there is to make some kind of detective like assumptions.
- [44:07]
Ellen Harris
Spills happened, of course, and then you bought them and then you get all sorts of mess. Yes.
- [44:13]
Stephen Dubner
That, again, is the musicologist Ellen Harris.
- [44:16]
Ellen Harris
I mean, Messiah was written in three weeks. He would write at something of a white heat.
- [44:22]
Stephen Dubner
Can you describe for me how Handel composed? What instrument was he composing on, if.
- [44:28]
Ellen Harris
Any, if any, instrument? He would have used a keyboard instrument and probably a small harpsichord. He did have in the house. A small harpsichord. He had a large harpsichord. The large harpsichord is probably used for the rehearsals in the front music room. The small harpsichord potentially in the back room, where he could Compose. A lot of composers simply write music. Their music is in their head and they write it down. They don't play it first, necessarily. On the other hand, Hndel was an improviser, and Saul would probably have improvised some things and maybe then written them down. As he writes, he knows well enough what he wants to do that he can lay out a score. But then after he finishes, he goes back and fills it up. He writes all the inner parts, depending on what the score is. For any particular aria, he is adding the inner violin parts or the viola part, or he's adding some of the.
- [45:27]
Stephen Dubner
Inner wind parts, maybe even a trumpet, could be.
- [45:30]
Ellen Harris
He gives his scores two dates, the first time through and then the second time through when he actually puts in all the parts and the recitative. That's the order of things. And, of course, in the process of this makes changes. So sometimes pages get ripped out, new pages get put in.
- [45:48]
Stephen Dubner
Did he bring in vocalists to hear how all the vocal parts would sound like? As he's writing Messiah and preparing to bring it up to Dublin for its debut, do you know if he rehearsed with any vocalists either here or there?
- [46:00]
Ellen Harris
No, I do not think so. When he put the two choirs together, he had, I think, 16 men and 16 boys. And the men, the soloists. The men parts were taken from the choristers, I believe he had Evolio and an Italian singer who sang with him, who came with him to Dublin. Thus the only person who could have rehearsed with him on the way. But he caught up with Susanna Cibber in Dublin. She did not come with him.
- [46:28]
Stephen Dubner
That was happenstance.
- [46:30]
Ellen Harris
It was happenstance indeed.
- [46:32]
Stephen Dubner
Susanna Cibber was a prominent young actress who had worked with Handel in London on a variety of productions.
- [46:39]
Ellen Harris
She was horribly abused by her husband, who set her up with another man and then accused her of adultery. Publicly ruined her career in London, at least for a short while. She was in Dublin doing some theatrical things, and Handel was able to pick her up for some of his performances and then had her sing he was despised, Rejected. And it's a song that works so beautifully for a theater voice. It's not a virtuosic piece. The phrases are very short so that you don't need a lot of breath. It speaks a lot of Messiah has this quality where I can't imagine the words being said any other way. He was despised, Despised and rejected Rejected of man. I mean, I'm tempted to sort of go into it. He was despised, Despised and rejected Rejected of men A man of an. You know, it's just like little phrases with breaths. And then you come back and you get the rejected. Whereas, you know, rejoice greatly which is sung by the soprano is as virtuosic as it can possibly be. And oh, I'm not going to try to sing that for you right now. You know, with long runs and enormous demand placed on the breath. So this sense of drama in he was despised is something that was very close to Susannah Sibbers best skills.
- [48:33]
Stephen Dubner
In Dublin there was great excitement over a new composition. A new kind of composition by George Friedrich Handel. There was so much demand for tickets and so little space inside the music hall that ladies were asked to arrive without the hoops in their skirts and men without their swords. So how was the debut received? Here's how Charles King puts it in his book Every Valley. The public reaction to Messiah was astonishment and wonder.
- [49:02]
Charles King
Someone who was present at the first performance said it was a species of music like no other. People were just kind of flabbergasted by it. And on the way back to London from Dublin, Handel even took the time to stop into Charles Jennings's estate.
- [49:17]
Stephen Dubner
Charles Jennings, you will remember, was the wealthy and pious man who assembled the lyrics for Messiah from his personal collection of biblical manuscripts.
- [49:26]
Charles King
Jennings unfortunately wasn't home at the time, but he wanted to tell him, as Handel put it, how well your Messiah, he was giving Jenings the credit. How well your Messiah was received there.
- [49:38]
Stephen Dubner
Although maybe slightly disingenuous since Handel hadn't even told me to finish the piece, much less that he was going to perform it. Correct, yeah.
- [49:45]
Charles King
By the time Handel was coming back from Dublin, Jenin knew that Handel had set his text to music. Jenin might have said, you know, you could have invited me to Dublin to be there too. You know, I might have liked to have been in the audience.
- [50:10]
Stephen Dubner
It would be hard to overstate just how valuable that trip to Dublin turned out to be for Handel.
- [50:16]
Pronshius Odin
We gave him back his. What they call the mojo. Is that what he calls today?
- [50:19]
Stephen Dubner
That's Pronshius Odin, the Irish conductor we spoke with last week.
- [50:23]
Pronshius Odin
Because the Irish temperament, I think, and the reception he got. He thoroughly enjoyed his stay and said he wanted to come back, but its health didn't let him.
- [50:31]
Stephen Dubner
He did stay nine months.
- [50:33]
Pronshius Odin
Nine months. When he was leaving nine months later, he was so pleased with Dublin and the treatment he got here that he actually bought an organ and donated it to the hall as a gift, as a thank you.
- [50:43]
Stephen Dubner
Is it either naive or maybe heretical of me to suggest that just as Messiah was a Story about resurrection, that the Dublin trip for Handel was a resurrection of sorts for him.
- [50:55]
Pronshius Odin
Well, resurrection is strong, but we gave him back his energy. He went back to London full of energy to compose again.
- [51:02]
Stephen Dubner
And here is Ellen Harris once again following the money.
- [51:06]
Ellen Harris
When he came back to London, he opened an annuities account at the bank of England with £1,600.
- [51:12]
Stephen Dubner
Wow. Where'd that come from?
- [51:14]
Ellen Harris
Dublin. Where else could it.
- [51:16]
Stephen Dubner
He made £1,600 in Dublin?
- [51:18]
Ellen Harris
I can't say that, but I can tell you that he had no bank account when he left for Dublin. And when he came back, he opened a new annuity account with £1,600. My best guess is that he earned a great deal of money in Dublin. For the first time in his life, he had both a cash account and an annuity account. What he did from 1743 is he apparently put all of the proceeds from his season into the cash account, waited until he paid all his bills, and then just moved the rest into annuity accounts. And you can watch it happen. And you can see on a day that he suddenly takes all the money out of his cash account and moves.
- [52:04]
Stephen Dubner
It into an annuity account because he's feeling flush. He doesn't need that much cash on hand anymore and he's secure enough to invest.
- [52:11]
Ellen Harris
He has apparently paid his bills that he needed to pay. When he came back to London, he was importuned to write operas and he said no. He made it very clear that he was done. He knew that doing works in English drew a large audience. And since the works in English were largely based on biblical texts, they were performed during Lent. Only he didn't have to worry about staging because they were not staged. He could use English singers who came much less expensively, and he had a shorter season.
- [52:51]
Stephen Dubner
But I would think that's a problem because you have less time for earning.
- [52:53]
Ellen Harris
True, he had less time for earning, but in fact the costs were so much less that he could actually make more money.
- [53:01]
Stephen Dubner
So it's really about cutting production costs. That seems to be the key driver.
- [53:06]
Ellen Harris
I think it is the key driver. By 1745 on, he's given up the subscriptions altogether and is simply taking box office. I mean, that's also very new, the idea that you could run a company and simply take box office and not have any subscribers. He found dealing with the subscribers an irritation from 1745. He never withdraws anything from an annuity. All the annuity counts just get bigger and bigger and bigger because there are no withdrawals. This is so Opposite from what was happening in the 1730s, when there are only withdrawals.
- [53:44]
Stephen Dubner
Okay, so he's becoming quite wealthy relatively late in life, and I'm happy for him. But as I understand it, when he brought Messiah back to London, it wasn't nearly as well received there as it was in Dublin.
- [53:56]
Ellen Harris
Well, it wasn't terribly successful. It's clearly a piece that he liked. He kept trying to adjust it to London taste so that we get all these different Messiahs. You know, the 1743 Messiah, then the 1745 Messiah. And the first performance in London, I think it had three performances in that season. So that's not a big hit. He didn't hit his groove in London with Messiah until it became a charity piece at the Foundling Hospital. The first Foundling hospital performance is 1750.
- [54:32]
Stephen Dubner
And what is the Foundling Hospital? Here again is Charles King.
- [54:36]
Charles King
The impulse behind it originally was the idea that we didn't have to live in a world in which people were just abandoned to their fate. That the wealthy, the well connected, had both the responsibility to and the means to create an institution that could help solve the problem.
- [54:55]
Stephen Dubner
The Foundling Hospital was created by a man called Thomas Coram.
- [54:59]
Charles King
Thomas Coram was kind of the quintessential man of projects of the early 18th century. He was never wealthy himself. He was always a commercial agent. First in the new world in the American colonies. He spent time in Boston. He married a woman from Boston, went back and forth across the Atlantic several times in his life. But he was never particularly successful with much of anything.
- [55:23]
Stephen Dubner
On one trip back to London, Coram was shocked by what he saw. Young children living on the streets in dire poverty.
- [55:30]
Charles King
Coram developed a particular interest in one category of child, which at the time was called a foundling. Foundlings were different from orphans. Orphans were kids who, through chance fate, had been left without parents. And they were often already looked out for by churches and by charitable organizations of that type. But foundlings were a real social problem because families were kids who had one or both parents still living. But for some reason, the parents couldn't care for them, or they decided to just abandon them on the street. And this deeply affected Coram, and he began this long project of getting wealthy aristocratic Britons on the side of creating an institution that would be focused on foundlings. He had all of these really terrific contacts from his time working on and in the colonies. The wealthiest people in Britain knew Thomas Coram. And also then he could marry that with this new charitable commitment that he discovered.
- [56:35]
Stephen Dubner
So how successful overall was this charitable Commitment.
- [56:38]
Charles King
The Foundling Hospital, after struggling and struggling and struggling, finally got off the ground with a Royal Charter and with the most important wealthiest people in Britain on its board of governors, and finally broke ground to create a formal institution where they could begin to bring kids in. But like any charity, they were always looking for money. They were always looking to be able to take in more children, because the number of children who actually went to the Foundling Hospital and were cared for there were a tiny fraction of the families who existed in London. But by the 1750s, when Handel is asked to begin doing annual concerts to support the Foundling Hospital, it had become arguably the most well known family oriented charity in Britain.
- [57:27]
Stephen Dubner
Describe the performances of Messiah at the Foundling Hospital early on, including Handel's not just authorship, obviously, but his role there.
- [57:35]
Charles King
Throughout most of the 1750s, until his health really begins to decline. Handel is in person conducting from the organ the performances of Messiah. You want to go to this institution, your money's going to a good cause. You would see the children sitting in the balcony in their uniforms, so you're seeing the beneficiaries of your good offices. And then, then you would have the chance to see this grand artistic figure who with his gigantic 17th century wig, really looks like he's transported from a different era. And you would do all of that in the company of the great and the good of London. So these were the hottest tickets of the year, practically.
- [58:18]
Stephen Dubner
When I think about the themes in the piece, redemption after heartbreak, joy after sorrow and so on, I think not just on a population level or a historical level, but on a personal level. And Handel, his reputation had been diminishing. And then at a relatively late stage in his life, he wrote this piece and it really set the tone for the rest of his life. When I was talking about this with a friend of mine, she runs a museum, she was talking about all the artists who in their 70s, 80s, even 90s, really hit their stride. I'm just curious if you could give me a little bit about how this, I don't want to say rescued Handel or rehabilitated him. I don't know, maybe those words are appropriate. But how do you see this fitting into the arc of his life? How surprising was it, how fortunate was it, et cetera?
- [59:09]
Charles King
Handel had no idea that the thing that he composed in 24 days in August and September of 17, 1941, was going to be the reason we're now in 2025 talking about him. In fact, this is one of the hardest things, I think, to talk with great Messiah fans about because this piece of music means so much to so many people, and people experience it very deeply. They want it to be the product of Handel's deep religious devotion. They want an angel on his shoulder. Older I think the deeper, more profound truth to all of this is we never know what we do right now, how it's going to affect what happens tomorrow, what happens next week, or how the things we do in this moment affect the rest of our life. And that, in a way, is also written into Messiah. It starts with this idea that it will seem very strange to say this in this moment, in this world, but a redeemer is coming, a revolution is at hand, an upturning of everything is going to come. You know, what a ridiculous thing to say. But I love the idea that Handel, in a way, in his own life and the composition of this piece of music is enacting the very logic that you find inside Messiah itself.
- [60:34]
Stephen Dubner
Glory to God.
- [60:36]
Ellen Harris
Glory to God.
- [60:39]
Stephen Dubner
Coming up next time on Freakonomics Radio, we find another Handel archive.
- [60:44]
Pronshius Odin
I like the bit at the beginning. In the name of God, amen.
- [60:46]
Ellen Harris
I, George Frederick Handel, considering the uncertainty.
- [60:49]
Stephen Dubner
Of human life, do make this my will. In manner following, we'll hear from the conductor who is leading this year's Messiah at Lincoln center with the New York Philharmonic. I closed the score and handed it.
- [60:59]
Charles King
To my assistant behind me.
- [61:01]
Stephen Dubner
The concertmaster said, what are you doing?
- [61:04]
Charles King
And I said, I don't need that now.
- [61:07]
Stephen Dubner
And we ask, whose Messiah is it anyway?
- [61:10]
Ellen Harris
There's a sense of pride, of ownership. This is ours.
- [61:14]
Stephen Dubner
We'll also be slipping in a bonus episode, a conversation with the man who presents the Lincoln Center Messiah.
- [61:21]
Philip Rushforth
Orchestras are really expensive bands. Every orchestra in America struggles to break even.
- [61:30]
Stephen Dubner
That's next time. Until then, take care of yourself. And if you can, someone else too. Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. You can find our entire archive on any podcast app. Also@freakonomics.com where we publish complete transcripts and show notes. This episode was produced by Zach Lipinski and edited by Ellen Frankman. It was mixed by Jasmine Klinger with help from Jeremy Johnston. Thanks also to Rob Double of London Broadcast for field recording in Chester and London, to Regan Hutchins for recording in Dublin, to Katrine Nyland Sorenson for her help with production and for her podcast Handel's Messiah, the Advent Calendar. And special thanks to London Symphony Orchestra Live for allowing us to use their recording of Messiah, perhaps performed in 2006 and conducted by Sir Colin Davis. The Freakonomics Radio Network staff also includes Alina Coleman, Augusta Chapman, Dalvin Aboagi, Eleanor Osborne, Elsa Hernandez, Gabriel Roth, Greg Rippon, Hilaria Montenacourt, Morgan Levy, Sarah Lilly and Teo Jacobs. Our theme song is Mr. Fortune by the Hitchhikers and our composer is Luis Guerra. As always, thanks for listening. People are split, as you know, about whether Messiah should end with the Hallelujah.
- [62:51]
Ellen Harris
Oh, bitch, no you don't. You don't end Messiah with the Hallelujah Chorus. That's the end of part two. You're not going to go on to part three. You're going to give up. The trumpet will sound. You're going to give up. I know that my Redeemer liveth. You're gonna give up. Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto him. No. The Freakonomics Radio Network the Hidden side of Everything.
- [63:24]
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- [63:54]
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- [64:10]
Ellen Harris
Know, the real you.
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- [64:25]
Ellen Harris
Hey there.
- [64:25]
Stephen Dubner
I'm Stephen Dubner, host of Freakonomics Radio. If you love the podcast in the Freakonomics Radio Network, I want to tell you about a way you can get even more from us to hear our shows without ads and get exclusive access to Freakonomics Radio bonus episodes. Please subscribe to SiriusXM podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts or sign up at siriusxm.com podcastsplus. Start a free trial today.