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Acis and Galatea, variously described as a pastoral, a ‘little opera’ and a masque, is one of Handel’s most popular works. It is a delectable succession of pastoral airs, love-lorn lyrics, and sprightly or mourning choruses, spiced by the pungent and unforgettable interjection of the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, who destroys the idyll of the shepherd Acis and the nymph Galatea. Handel had first turned to the subject in a cantata written in Naples in 1708. His English work, formally a masque, went through several stages until this two-act version of 1739, written principally by John Gay and graced by Handel’s exquisite music.

Handel composed Hercules for his 1744-45 oratorio season as the secular foil to one of his most ambitious sacred dramas, Belshazzar, hoping to repeat the success of the previous season’s Samson/Semele pairing. Like Semele, Hercules, which Handel called ‘A Musical Drama’, is an English opera in all but name and shares its theme of the destructive power of sexual jealousy. Handel’s music is of outstanding quality and the commanding figure of Dejanira – rapturous in her love for her returning hero, distraught at his imagined dalliance with Iöle, eventually mad with despair at the enormity of her misguided actions – is one of his most powerfully drawn female rôles.

Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt was written three years before the Messiah and, like the Messiah, is somewhat atypical of the composer’s oratorios.

Scored for double chorus and an orchestra using trombones, trumpets, timpani, woodwinds and strings with continuo, Israel in Egypt contains relatively little solo material but is dominated by large-scale virtuosic choruses that fully exploit Handel’s lavish and sophisticated word-painting.

Set pieces for which the work is most famous include swarming strings representing flies in ‘He spake the word’, the furious brass and timpani in ‘He gave them hailstones for rain’ and the famous depiction of frogs in the aria ‘Their land brought forth frogs’.

Handel’s oratorio Semele was composed in 1743 and tells of a beautiful mortal (Semele), whose short but spectacular love affair with Jupiter, King of the Gods, comes to a terrifying end in consequence of both her own vanity and the scheming of Jupiter’s insanely jealous wife Juno. Written at the peak of Handel’s powers, it is crammed with his most sparkling and dramatic music: spectacular orchestral numbers and powerful choruses combine with heart-stopping arias, including the popular Where’er you walk and the coloratura showpiece Myself I shall adore.

Set in a time of ancient Rome’s persecution of the Christians, Handel’s late masterpiece Theodora tells of the tragic martyrdom of the heroine and her lover Didymus. The challenging nature of the libretto with its religious conflict, cruelty, self-sacrifice and brothel scene was discomforting for contemporary audiences, and despite Handel’s magnificent music the oratorio was his least successful.

This is part of a series of Handel oratorios from Martini and Junge Kantorei.

Joachim Carlos Martini’s series of Handel’s oratorios has gained considerable critical acclaim and a sizeable following, with ‘first rate’ recommendations from publications such as the Penguin Guide (on Tobit, 8570113-14). Controversial in its time and relatively neglected since, if anything the themes of Theodora resonate more today. Handel’s masterly score is given a tremendous performance here, with a recording consistent with the extremely high standards of the rest of the series.

Compiled by John Christopher Smith from Handel’s operas, oratorios and other works, the oratorio Tobit, sometimes described as a pastiche, provided a winning synthesis of religion and entertainment at a time when newly-minted oratorios, drawing chiefly on biblical subjects were in vogue. The story of the pious and steadfast Tobit (Tobias the elder) is taken from the apocryphal Book of Tobias, in which he is persecuted for burying the dead. Patient in adversity, Tobit is finally restored to health and prosperity, while his son, Tobias, is safely married to Sarah.