Alexander Baloos

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexander Balus ( HWV 65) is an oratorio in three parts by Georg Friedrich Handel .

Emergence

According to the dates in the autograph, Handel wrote the first two acts of Alexander Balus from June 1 to June 24, 1747 and the third to June 30. The entire score with instrumentation was completed on July 4th. In the same year he wrote the oratorio Joshua from July 19 to August 19 .

The premiere took place two weeks after that of Joshua, namely on March 23, 1748 at the Covent Garden Theater . As on similar occasions, a new concert was given as inter-act music. This is probably the Concerto a due cori in F major, No. 2 (HWV 333), composed shortly before .

libretto

The librettist of the work was Reverend Thomas Morell , who provided the texts for several of the late Handel oratorios. The plot is based on the apocryphal book of Maccabees (1 Makk 1–10). Thematically, he is thus close to the previous oratorio Judas Maccabaeus : Jonathan in this work is a brother of Judas.

people

The cast was sung by the following singers at the world premiere:

literature

  • Winton Dean : Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques . Clarendon, Oxford 1989, ISBN 0-19-816184-0 , (Original edition: Oxford University Press, Oxford 1959), (English).
  • Hans Joachim Marx : Handel's oratorios, odes and serenatas. A compendium. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-525-27815-2 .
  • Albert Scheibler, Julia Evdokimova: Georg Friedrich Händel. Oratorios guides . Edition Cologne, Lohmar 1993, ISBN 3-928010-04-2 .

Web links