Israel in Egypt December 2018 - Programme
Israel in Egypt (HWV 54) is a biblical oratorio by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) with a libretto assembled by Charles Jennens (1700-1773). The text consists entirely of extracts compiled from the Old Testament books of Exodus and Psalms. Handel wrote only two oratorios with exclusively biblical texts, Messiah being the other one. Israel in Egypt was completed in the space of just 20 days and was premiered at London's King's Theatre in the Haymarket on April 4th, 1739. The original version of the piece was in three parts rather than two, the first part more usually known now as the funeral anthem The Ways of Zion do Mourn (written earlier in the same year for the funeral of Queen Caroline, with altered text as The Sons of Israel do Mourn), lamenting the death of Joseph. This section precedes the Exodus, which in the original three-part version is Part II rather than Part I. This performance will comprise the original Parts II and III.
Handel composed Israel in Egypt soon after the opera season at the King's Theatre was cancelled due to a lack of subscribers. The oratorio was not well received by either the Daily Post, if contemporary reviews are to be believed, or the first audience. This was partly because of the exclusively scriptural text, which did not sit comfortably with some in a secular theatre, and partly because of the imbalance between the many (some might say relentless or incessant) dense choruses and double choruses, against the paucity of poignant and tuneful arias and duets for the popular ‘divas of the day’. Additionally, London audiences at that time were not used to such extensive sacred choral pieces presented as commercial entertainment; and it is likely that the opening dirge, in the original version of about thirty minutes in length, detailing the death of Joseph, and recognisably adapted from the funeral anthem for a recently deceased and much loved Queen (Handel no doubt wishing to give the piece a commercial life beyond its single outing at the Queen’s funeral), contributed to the failure of Israel in Egypt at its first performance. The second performance was shortened, and the work was subsequently revised by Handel, who augmented it with some Italian-style arias. Israel in Egypt and Messiah also share the unusual characteristic amongst Handel’s oratorios in that, unlike the others, they do not have casts of named characters singing dialogue and performing an un-staged drama. The work was published for the first time in 1771 (Parts II and III only) by the publishing house of Randall of London. Along with Messiah, it became a firm favourite with audiences at secular performances at the Crystal Palace in the later nineteenth century.
The speed at which Handel completed some of his compositions can be partly attributed to his propensity for blatant plagiarism and parodying (the copying/reworking of existing music), both of his own work and that of others. In his 2013 book, Music in the Castle of Heaven, Sir John Eliot Gardiner quotes, and then expands on the quotation from William Boyce at the top of the notes later in this programme: [In terms of the polishing of pebbles]…“the most blatant and in some ways baffling example of this practice occurs in his great oratorio Israel in Egypt. Of its thirty-nine numbers no fewer than sixteen owe a melodic motif (and sometimes a lot more besides) to four other composers – Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682), Johann Kaspar Kerll (1627-1693) and two rather obscure Italian composers, Dionigi Erba (1692-1730) and Francesco Urio (1631-1719). Some of their material clashes with Handel’s style, whilst some of it is frankly banal; but it seems to have acted like a trigger, detonating Handel’s creative processes. In every case he enriches and surpasses his models. The overall result is one of the most original and dramatically gripping sequences of choral/orchestral writing to have survived from the middle years of the eighteenth century.”
In writing Israel in Egypt, Handel stole heavily and shamelessly from Stradella’s wedding serenata Qual prodigio è ch’io miri?, and Erba’s Magnificat. Other composers Handel parodied in Israel in Egypt were Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), Nicolaus Strungk (1640-1700), Friedrich Zachow (1663-1712; a native to Handel’s home town of Halle) and Giovanni Gabrieli (c1556-1612). The music of these composers was almost certainly not generally known to London audiences at the time, if known at all, which suggests that they would have been entirely unaware of this plagiarising, assuming the work to be all brand new and original material by Handel himself.
