Solomon (oratorio)

Solomon, HWV 67, is an English oratorio by George Frideric Handel. The anonymous libretto - currently thought to have been penned by the Jewish-born poet/playwright Moses Mendes (d.1758) - is based on the biblical stories of wise king Solomon from the First Book of Kings and the Second Book of Chronicles with additional material from Antiquities of the Jews by ancient historian Flavius Josephus. The music was composed between 5 May and 13 June, 1748 and the first performance took place on 17 March, 1749 with Caterina Galli in the title role at the Covent Garden Theatre in London where it had two further performances. Handel revived the work in 1759.

The oratorio contains a short and lively instrumental passage for two oboes and strings in Act Three, known as "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba", which has become famous outside the context of the complete work and was featured at the London Olympics in 2012.

The German-born Handel had been resident in London since 1712 and had there enjoyed great success as a composer of Italian operas. His opportunities to set English texts to music had at first been more limited; he had spent the years 1717 to 1719 as composer in residence to the wealthy Duke of Chandos where he had written church anthems and two stage works, Acis and Galatea and Esther; and had composed vocal music to English words for various royal occasions, including a set of Coronation anthems for George II in 1727, which had made a huge impact. In 1731, a performance of the 1718 version of Esther, a work in English based on a Biblical drama by Jean Racine, was given in London without Handel's participation and had proved popular, so Handel revised the work and planned to present it at the theatre where his Italian operas were being presented. However the Bishop of London would not permit a drama based on a Biblical story to be acted out on the stage, and therefore Handel presented Esther in concert form, thus giving birth to the English oratorio. Such was the success of his oratorios in English that eventually Handel abandoned Italian opera, his last being Deidamia in 1741, and produced a string of masterpieces of oratorio in English.

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