Israel in Egypt. Venerated alongside the Messiah during the revival of Handel's music in Victorian Britain, Israel in Egypt was the first non-dramatic English oratorio. With operatic opportunities at the King's Theatre drying up, Handel had turned increasingly to oratorio in the late 1730s and 1740s. Israel in Egypt was thus composed in 1738, hot on the heels of Saul, and was unusual for its huge choral movements: when first performed, the public, used to Italian opera, could not stomach them; as a result, the second performance was advertised as “shortened and intermix'd with Songs [arias]”. HANDEL was the code-name for the UKs National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. ... An oratorio is a large musical composition for orchestra, vocal soloists and chorus. ... This article is about aria, a type of music. ...

Though much performed (and recorded), the work seems to elicit more dissent (however regretful) than do Handel's other masterpieces. Few can deny the stirring impact of its best passages, especially the doublechoruses in which one vocal body answers, echoes or enhances the other. The problem is in the work's lack of drama. Among fifty-one numbers filled with some of this composer's best music, it is only in the finale that a “character” (Miriam) sings; two-thirds of the music goes to the chorus; and the solo, duet and quartet numbers, however beautiful, are brief and reflective. For Segas arcade game, see Quartet. ...

A setting of passages from several books of the Old Testament concerning the freeing of the Jews from bondage, Israel in Egypt is not, unlike other Handel oratorios, the celebration of a principal hero (like Solomon) or heroine (Esther) but a story of the faith and salvation of an entire community. Handel was dealing with issues too big for illustration as the travails (or airs, however decorated) of single characters. This musical play follows the Biblical narrative structure of simple statement of event, followed by prayers of praise or reflections upon God's daunting will. And Israel in Egypt is a musical play in the purest sense: the “action” occurs not onstage, in the throes of a soprano's da capo distress or a tenor's scales of vengeance, but in the pit - in the giggle-provoking hops of sound in "Their land brought forth frogs" (Part II, no. 5); or in the deliciously creepy "He sent a thick darkness over all the land" (No. 8). When following the score's mingled textures and varying timeflows of music as attentively as one would a conventional, word-driven plot, Israel becomes not an overlong choral ordeal but a gripping, rewarding saga created through sound. Solomon (Hebrew, Shlomo from Shalom for peace, also Arabic as Suleiman or Sulyaman meaning peace) can mean any of the following: 1. ... Haddassah more commonly known as Esther (אֶסְתֵּר, Standard Hebrew Ester, Tiberian Hebrew ʾEstÄ“r) was a woman in the Hebrew Bible, the queen of Ahasuerus (commonly identified with Xerxes I or Artaxerxes I), and heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther which is named after her. ... Air (french for: Aria; also: Ayr, Ayre), a variant of the musical song form, is the name of various song-like vocal or instrumental compositions. ... Look up Soprano in Wiktionary, the free dictionary In music, a soprano is a singer with a voice ranging approximately from the A below middle C to high C two octaves above middle C (i. ... Da Capo may refer to: Da Capo (Ace of Base album), a 2002 album by the Swedish pop band Ace of Base Da Capo (Love album), a 1967 album by the American rock band Love D.C. ~Da Capo~, a 2002 renai game by Circus This is a disambiguation page... In music, a tenor is a male singer with a high voice (although not as high as a countertenor). ...

Particularly impressive is the proto-Hallelujah chorus “Sing ye to the Lord”, and also noteworthy is the uncertain chromaticism of “He sent a thick darkness”. Interestingly, like many of Handel's works, Israel in Egypt makes a number of musical “borrowings”. The chorus “Egypt was glad,” for example, is an unacknowledged transcript of a canzona by J K Kerll. This practice was quite common in the Baroque, though it is the source of much conjecture in discussions of Handel's music. Canzona (also canzone) is a poetic form, and a type of musical composition. ... Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 to 1750 (see Dates of classical music eras for a discussion of the problems inherent in defining the beginning and end points). ...

Most Israel performances offer only Parts II and III, "Exodus" and "The Song of Moses."