Following upon “Alexander’s Feast” (1736), in 1739 Handel produced a second setting of the “Ode to St Cecilia” (“Song for St Cecilia’s Day”). At its première it was combined with “Alexander’s Feast”. Rather than a dramatic plot presentable ...

Following upon “Alexander’s Feast” (1736), in 1739 Handel produced a second setting of the “Ode to St Cecilia” (“Song for St Cecilia’s Day”). At its première it was combined with “Alexander’s Feast”. Rather than a dramatic plot presentable ...

Handel composed his first Italian oratorio “La Bellezza ravveduta nel trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno” in 1707. It is based on an allegorical moral libretto written by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili who also commissioned this work.

Disinganno ...

Handel composed his only oratorio in German between 1716 and 1717 basing it on the then popular Passion text by Barthold Heinrich Brockes entitled “Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus” (“The Story of Jesus, Suffering ...

Handel composed his only oratorio in German between 1716 and 1717 basing it on the then popular Passion text by Barthold Heinrich Brockes entitled “Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus” (“The Story of Jesus, Suffering ...

In the autograph, the “little Cecilia Ode”, composed in September 1739, is superscribed with “Song”; the title used in contemporary sources, such as the textual source by John Dryden, and taken over by the Halle Handel Edition is “Song for ...