Nothing announces the holiday season quite as gloriously as the “Hallelujah” chorus from George Frideric Handel’s Messiah. Orchestras and choirs all over the nation will be performing the famous oratorio as Christmas approaches. But when Handel wrote the work in 1741, he had a different holiday altogether in mind. “It was actually intended for Easter week,” explains conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, who will lead the Nashville Symphony and Chorus in performances of Messiah this weekend. The first performance of the oratorio took place in Dublin in April of 1742, with the London premiere happening the following year in March. In Europe,...