Ouverture to "Solomon"

George Frideric Handel composed his oratorio “Solomon” in 1748, during a period in which he was decisively shaping the great sacred music dramas of the English oratorio tradition. The overture that opens the work stands as a prime example of Handel's mature musical language: magnificent and stately in character, yet suffused with an inner warmth that lends the Baroque formal ideal a distinctively noble quality.

The scoring for two oboes and strings with basso continuo gives the work an intimacy reminiscent of chamber music, which anticipates the ceremonial splendour of the oratorio in a concentrated form. Handel's musical language here unites the tradition of the French-influenced overture style with the melodic richness of the Italian Baroque — a synthesis that characterises his output as a whole and which he brought to its fullest maturity in England.

“Solomon” is regarded as one of the most ambitious works of Handel's late period. The overture reflects the spirit of this artistic high point: assured in its craftsmanship, elegant in its voice-leading, and marked by that clear, luminous tone which makes Handel's orchestral writing of the 1740s so instantly recognisable.