Composers

Alexander's Feast

Composer: Handel George Frideric

Instruments: Voice Mixed chorus Orchestra

Tags: Secular oratorios Oratorio

#Parts
#Arrangements

Download free scores:

Complete. Complete Score PDF 37 MB
Complete. Complete Score PDF 5 MBComplete. Complete Score PDF 8 MB
Complete. Complete Score PDF 5 MB
Complete. Segment 1 PDF 24 MBComplete. Segment 2 PDF 21 MBComplete. Segment 3 PDF 23 MBComplete. Segment 4 PDF 23 MBComplete. Segment 5 PDF 20 MB
Aria: Revenge, Timotheus cries (Act II, No.24). Complete Score PDF 0 MB
Complete. Complete Score PDF 13 MB
Overture. Complete Score PDF 1 MB
Complete. Complete Score PDF 29 MB
Aria: Revenge, Timotheus cries (Act II, No.24). Complete Score PDF 1 MB

Parts for:

All

Arrangements:

Other

Overture. Harpsichord + Organ (Unknown)Aria: Softly sweet in Lydian measure (Act I, No.17). Cello + Piano (Philipp Roth)Aria and Chorus: Happy happy happy pair (Act I, No.3). Organ + Mixed chorus (Walter Schmid)Complete. Orchestra + Voice + Mixed chorus (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)Aria: Revenge, Timotheus cries (Act II, No.24). Organ + Trumpet (Rondeau, Michel)Selections. Orchestra + Voice + Mixed chorus (Richard Fricke)Chorus: The many rend the skies (Act I, No.20). Organ (William Thomas Best)
Wikipedia
Alexander's Feast (HWV 75) is an ode with music by George Frideric Handel set to a libretto by Newburgh Hamilton. Hamilton adapted his libretto from John Dryden's ode Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music (1697) which had been written to celebrate Saint Cecilia's Day. Jeremiah Clarke (whose score is now lost) set the original ode to music.
Handel composed the music in January 1736, and the work received its premiere at the Covent Garden Theatre, London, on 19 February 1736. In its original form it contained three concertos: a concerto in B flat major in 3 movements for "Harp, Lute, Lyrichord and other Instruments" HWV 294 for performance after the recitative Timotheus, plac'd on high in Part I; a concerto grosso in C major in 4 movements for oboes, bassoon and strings, now known as the "Concerto in Alexander's Feast" HWV 318, performed between Parts I and II; and an organ concerto HWV 289 in G minor and major in 4 movements for chamber organ, oboes, bassoon and strings performed after the chorus Let old Timotheus yield the prize in Part II. The organ concerto and harp concerto were published in 1738 by John Walsh as the first and last of the Handel organ concertos Op.4. Handel revised the music for performances in 1739, 1742 and 1751. Donald Burrows has discussed Handel's revisions to the score.
The work describes a banquet held by Alexander the Great and his mistress Thaïs in the captured Persian city of Persepolis, during which the musician Timotheus sings and plays his lyre, arousing various moods in Alexander until he is finally incited to burn the city down in revenge for his dead Greek soldiers.
The piece was a great success and it encouraged Handel to make the transition from writing Italian operas to English choral works. The soloists at the premiere were the sopranos Anna Maria Strada and Cecilia Young, the tenor John Beard, and a bass called Erard (first name unknown).
The soprano aria War, he sung, is toil and trouble was featured in Alfonso Cuaron's film Children of Men.