Judas Maccabaeus

Few of Handel’s works tapped into the political and military climate of Georgian England as effectively as his oratorio Judas Maccabaeus. Composed in the wake of the Jacobite Rising against King George II—crushed by the bloody Battle of Culloden in 1746—it became one of Handel’s most successful oratorios, with at least 54 performances during his lifetime. Handel also achieved his own sociological triumph. By abandoning the old subscription system of ticketing, and opening the doors to all-comers, middle-class audiences were, for the first time, able to attend performances alongside their social superiors. Across the social spectrum, many in the audience must have drawn parallels between the oratorio’s warlike hero—Judas—and the brutal victor of Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland. In Part I Judas becomes the new leader of the Israelites, while the final two parts (starting respectively from “Fall’n is the Foe,” and “Father of Heaven”) largely narrate his two great military victories, concluding in a Roman treaty awarding independence to Judaea. This ‘victory’ oratorio is more triumphalist than dramatically nuanced. Only the principal male characters are carefully drawn, though Handel does enhance the immediacy of the drama with a profusion of duets and a varied range of aria types. For a revival in 1750 he imported the march-like chorus “See the conqu’ring hero comes” from his oratorio Joshua—it rapidly became the best-loved movement in the work.