If Handel's choral works were indeed neglected throughout the C19th as claimed, I wonder what Messers Novello were doing when they printed Jephtha, Joshua, Judas Maccabeus, The Dettingen Te Deum, Israel In Egypt, the Chandos Anthems etc for the consumption of the Victorian public? Yet of Bach's music they published not one note. Handel (& Haydn) became so well-loved amongst choral societies (especially in Wales) that people christened their children after the composers, as forenames.
Further to Reiner's point:
I have in front of me my copy of Novello's Original Octavo Edition of
Tannhauser and the Tournament of Song at the Wartburg, price three shillings and sixpence, sadly undated*. Inside the back cover is a list of
Novello's Original Octavo Editions of Oratorios, Cantatas, Odes, Masses &c, which I am too bog-idle to scan, but includes:
Bach - Mass in B minor, the Passions (S. Matthew, abridged as used at St Paul's), The Christmas Oratorio, and a selection of choruses, including God Goeth Up With Shouting, My Spirit Was In Heaviness, and I Wrestle and Pray;
Handel - Alexander's Feast, Acis and Galatea, Alceste, Semele, Alexander Balus, Hercules, Ataliah, Esther, Susannah, Theodora, Belshazzar, The Messiah, Israel in Egypt (ed. Mendelssohn), Judas Maccabeus, Samson, Solomon, Jephtha, Joshua, Deborah, Saul, Chandos Te Deum, Dettingen Te Deum, Utrecht Jubilate, O Praise the Lord, Coronation and Funeral Anthems, Ode on St Cecilia's Day, L'Allegro, Dixit Dominus, Nisi Dominus.
Only Mendelssohn has a longer list of available items than Handel, although Haydn and Gounod do rather well too.
*edit: I've just found the date - 1899.
