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George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)Ode for St Cecilia's DayGeorg Friedrich Handel, later more generally known under theEnglish forms of name that he assumed in London, George Frideric Handel, wasborn in Halle in 1685, the son of a successful barber-surgeon and his muchyounger, second wife. His father opposed his son's early musical ambitions andafter his father's death Handel duly entered the University in Halle in 1702 asa student of law, as his father had insisted. He was able to seize the chanceof employment as organist at the Calvinist Cathedral the following month,holding the position for a year, until his departure for Hamburg, to work thereat the opera, at first as a violinist and then as harpsichordist and composer,contributing in the latter capacity to the Italian operatic repertoire of thehouse. At the invitation of the son of the Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany, hetravelled, in 1706, to Italy, where he won considerable success during the nextfour years. Connections he had made in Venice, brought appointment in 1710 asKapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover. From here he was granted immediateleave to fulfil a commission in London.Handel's first opera for London was Rinaldo, with which hewon general acclaim, and after little over a year in Hanover again, he returnedto England in the autumn of 1712. The following year he took up residence atBurlington House in Piccadilly as a guest of Lord Burlington. After a briefreturn to Germany in the summer of 1716, Handel returned to England, joiningthe establishment of James Brydges, Earl of Carnarvon and later Duke ofChandos, at Cannons, near Edgware. Principally, over the following years,Handel established himself as a composer of Italian opera, for which there wasa fashionable audience, gradually achieving a dominant position in the musicallife of the English capital. He enjoyed the royal patronage of George I,Elector of Hanover, who had succeeded to the English throne in 1715, on thedeath of Queen Anne, and on the death of the former in 1727 was commissioned toprovide anthems for the coronation of George II. In the following years he wasagain called upon to provide music for royal occasions. At the same time hisinvolvement with Italian opera brought increasing commercial difficulties,particularly after the establishment of a rival opera company in 1733 under thepatronage of Frederick, Prince of Wales, himself later a strong supporter ofHandel.While Handel's work in Italian opera continued, with a finalopera to be staged in 1741, he increasingly turned his attention to a newEnglish form, that of the oratorio. This had certain very practical advantages,in language, lack of the need for expensive spectacle and the increasingemployment of native singers. The content of oratorios appealed to EnglishProtestant susceptibilities, providing a winning synthesis of religion andentertainment, and offering no offence to those who had found operaticconventions ridiculous in a city with strong pre-existent dramat

Overture

Interlude

Recitative: For harmony, From Heav'nly Harmony

Chorus: From Harmony

Air: What Passion Cannot Music Raise

Air And Chorus: The Trumpet's Loud Clangour

March

Air: The Soft Complaining Flute

Air: Sharp Violins Proclaim

Air: But Oh! What Art Can Teach

Air: Orpheus Could Not Lead The Savage Race

Recitative: But Bright Cecillia

Air And Chorus: As From The Powers Of Sacred Lays