Israel in Egypt

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Israel in Egypt ( HWV  54) is an oratorio in three parts by George Frideric Handel .

Emergence

Contrary to his usual practice, Handel did not write this oratorio in one go from beginning to end. Rather, he began with the last part, which he called Moses Song and which he wrote between October 1st and 11th, 1738. It does not appear from his autograph that he planned this act as part of a larger oratorio; on the other hand, it is too short as an independent work.

Next, between October 15 and 20, Handel composed the second act, entitled Exodus , and orchestrated it until October 28. He finished with the instrumentation on November 1st. The music for the first part, Lamentation of the Israelites for the death of Joseph , he took from the Funeral Anthem, the funeral music for Queen Caroline , which he had written two years earlier. Little text had to be changed. When the score was printed, the first part was left out, so that the oratorio finally became a two-part work without an overture ( Exodus and Moses Song ). It is mostly performed in this form today.

The premiere took place on April 4, 1739 at the King's Theater on London's Haymarket. Probably the organ concerto in F major, The Cuckoo and the Nightingale , which Handel had completed shortly before, was played between the acts .

The following soloists were used for the premiere:

reception

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy performed the work again as a great admirer of Handel and “old music” at the Lower Rhine Music Festival on May 26, 1833 in Düsseldorf , 1836 in Leipzig and 1844 in Berlin . He was delighted to have discovered the score of the work in London. The oratorio was very popular in 19th century England. At the great Handel Festival , held in the second half of the 19th century at the Crystal Palace in London under the direction of the conductor August Manns , Handel's “ Messiah ” was usually performed on the first day and “Israel in Egypt” on the last day. The choir had up to 4,000 singers on these occasions. Also in 1888, on June 29th, “Israel in Egypt” was performed at the end of the Handel Festival in the Crystal Palace. Here, Edison's agent in London, Colonel George E. Gouraud, recorded some clips with Edison's new improved wax cylinder phonograph . Of these, there are still three recorded wax cylinders, which are the first ever recorded music to be recorded in Great Britain.

libretto

The text of the oratorio consists exclusively of quotations from the Bible. The librettist is suspected to be Charles Jennens , who later proceeded in a similar way with the libretto for the Messiah .

First part

Second part

third part

Forgery of “Thank you, Lord” by Siegfried Ochs

For the performances under his direction around 1900, Siegfried Ochs composed an arioso based on the Largo from Handel's opera Xerxes and issued it as Handel's composition.

Remarks

  1. ↑ The recordings from 1888 as MP3 files ( Memento from February 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Martin Staehelin: "Thank you, Lord" - To explain a Handel forgery of the early twentieth century . In: Göttingen Handel Contributions . tape 2 , 1986, p. 194-206 ( digitale-sammlungen.de ).

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Israel in Egypt  - Sources and full texts (English)