But who may abide (Messiah)

Handel wrote Messiah in twenty-four days in the late summer of 1741 and had it performed in Dublin the following April, for the relief of prisoners and hospitals. But who may abide the day of His coming sets words from Malachi and turns halfway from a quiet question into the refiner's fire, the voice suddenly running in rapid figures against the strings. Handel rewrote it more than once for different singers, and the version usually heard was made for the alto castrato Gaetano Guadagni.