Solomon: “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”

Composer: HANDEL, George Frideric
  • Handel composed his oratorio Solomon between May 5 and June 13, 1748. It was first performed Feb. 10, 1749.1 Solomon was one of Handel’s last oratorios.2
  • We have yet to discover who wrote the libretto, though it is suspected to be the same anonymous poet who wrote the libretto for Handel’ oratorio, Susanna (composed the same year).3
  • The oratorio Solomon is a celebration of benevolent monarchy, depicting three scenes from the biblical king’s life.4
  • This movement is the Sinfonia which opens Act 3, when the Queen of Sheba visits King Solomon’s court, and Solomon displays the achievements of his kingdom through a masque performance.5
    • Masque was an old-fashioned theater genre by Handel’s time. The English masque was a combination of music, song, speech, and dance which flourished in the Tudor and Stuart periods. Ben Jonson was a prominent writer of masques, and Henry Purcell composed several, including The Fairy Queen.6

Sources

  1. Anthony Hicks, “Handel [Händel, Hendel], George Frideric,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 17, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040060.
  2. Betsy Schwarm, “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba,” Encyclopædia Brittanica (August 5, 2013), accessed October 17, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Arrival-of-the-Queen-of-Sheba.
  3. Hicks, “Handel [Händel, Hendel], George Frideric,” Grove Music Online.
  4. Schwarm, “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba,” Encyclopædia Brittanica.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th ed., s.v. “Masque” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).

Cut IDs

19387, 40003, 45277