More Queen of Sheba than Solomon

Although Handel is a composer who is always in fashion, truly belonging the ‘core of the canon’, one can observe that different sections of his œuvre are especially popular at different times for the record industry. Thus, while pieces such as the Water Music and the Music for the Royal Fireworks have always been popular, it was only in the last twenty years that many of the operas were rediscovered for production on CD. The new enthusiasm was followed slightly later by a rediscovery of Handel’s oratorios. Messiah was of course always present for more than the last fifty years; but of all the other of Handel’s oratorios, not many were well-known until relatively recently. Robert King, Christopher Hogwood and Simon Preston, to name just a few, have made very valuable contributions to the catalogue. This has had the effect that more and…