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Oratorios by George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was an acclaimed opera composer in 1730 in London. But he had written his first oratorios earlier in Italy (in Italian) and in his early years in London (the Brockes Passion). From the 1730s onwards he increasingly wrote oratorios (Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, Saul, and Israel in Egypt) for the Covent Garden Theatre. Within just three weeks in 1741 he composed Messiah, his best-known and probably most important choral work. The work was wildly acclaimed by the public, so that from then onwards Handel staged an oratorio, usually newly-composed, in Lent at the Covent Garden Theatre.
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