Georg Friedrich Händel

Overture To the Occasional Oratorio

The Occasional Overture is a piece of two parts, the first meditative and singing with the dotted rhythms that denote grandeur, while the march is confident of victory. Handel composed the Occasional Oratorio or cobbled ittogether, as some sources would have it in the winter of 1746 and performed it almost immediately. The oratorio contained some new music and some borrowings from earlier music, and it was meant to express musical support forthe Hanoverian side in the second Jacobite rebellion. It was certainly not his greatest work, but just as certainly contains some movements among its forty-four in total that have music worthy of preservation and performance.