Aha, then a treat lies in store for you, good as the JEG recording might be   You'll see what I mean when you hear it - this is "baroque with balls".   Having said that, an even ballsier recording of "Where shall I fly?" (without the rest of the oratorio) is on Sarah Connolly's solo album "Heroes & Heroines", on The Sixteen's own label,  and it's utterly arresting...  one longs to hear the rest of it approached in a similar way.

Does anyone think that Handel's style is significantly different in the oratorios to the operas?  Apart, that is, from the renewed confidence of a composer who's no longer likely to lose his shirt on the next production

And which of his works would you most like to see staged for his 250th in 2009?

Somehow I missed all this "Julie" stuff. What happened?

I do tend to agree with DB that the oratorios are more interesting than the operas, partly, I would think, because coping with a new language caused Handel to rethink his melodic style in some interesting ways - while there were plenty of models for dramatic writing in Italian there were next to none in English, and, after a shaky start, Handel set standards which succeeding generations of British composers were (perhaps too) happy to follow. I find the recitatives also more characterised in the oratorios, plus of course the choruses (and, indeed, the occasional instrumental piece) give the overall structure more variety and sense of direction, and the arias do more than attempt new variations on stock "affects".

I'm not sure about staging, not having seen any staged versions, but I am very fond of Theodora so I shall give that a try some time.

Gosh, Reiner, I’m really flattered.  I wouldn’t dream of advising on the musical quality of any recording to any regular of this board, but as regards works here goes.

I am very fond of Athalia.  It is based not so much on the Bible as Racine, although given a protestant rather than a Jansenist slant (“We’ll purge with a reforming hand idolatry throughout the land, May God, from whom all blessings spring, Bless the true Church and save the King.”)  The only recording has a surreal line up of sopranos – Joan Sutherland magnificent as Athalia, tormented, imperious and wheedling, Emma Kirby as the High Priest’s wife and young Aled Jones as the infant and hidden true King of Israel..  It is the earliest example of the contrast between jolly pagans and noble Jews in Handel.  The tenor aria “Gentle airs, melodious strains” is dramatically irrelevant and lovely.

The two oratorios I have seen staged in my time were at ROH, where they worked very well.  They were Semele (with Valerie Masterson) and Samson (with Robert Tear and Carol Vaness).

Samson is based on Milton, rather than the Bible and includes a great variety in the music.  Ollie has waxed lyrical on Samson’s airs.  I was listening yesterday to the bass number “Honour and arms”, an old warhorse if ever there was one, corny but magnificent.  The corniness is appropriate to the character.  The Philistines are exceptionally jolly even by Handel’s pagan standards, and Samson’s contralto sidekick has the wonderful “Return, O God of hosts.”  (Originally sung by Mrs Cibber who sang “He was despised” to great acclaim.).  I have an aged recording with Janet Baker (surprisingly) as Dalila and Tear as Samson, under Leppard.

Semele is wonderful: the heroine, beautiful but silly, reminds me of the heroine of Pope’s Rape of the Lock.  There is no serious protestant piety here, but sophisticated sexual knowingness unlike yer typical Handel.  William Congreve’s libretto was for an opera.  My recording is with Kathleen Battle, John Aler, Marilyn Horne and other yanks managing passable British accents.  Not HIP, but I believe critics liked it.  Juno’s “Hence, hence, Iris hence away” is wonderful, but that probably says something about me.

Recordings of Acis and Galatea come out pretty well annually.  We did it at my school as a double bill with Trial by Jury, but I may have mentioned that before…

Well, if one believes God and religion to be utterly human constructions, in the sense of fictions that could be used to promote certain varieties of morality, ideology (not always bad ones), etc. and/or for the purposes of social control, then is it not possible to approach Handel or any other religious music as important social documents? So that one can 'read' them in terms of what they say about their own time, instead of on a divine level? I find that provides a way of being able to engage with them for me.

I'm not a believer either, and I will go part of the way with you to say that if Messiah is judged in comparison with the other oratorios from a point of view which focuses more closely on the music than on its "sacred" quality, difficult though that is given (especially in the UK) the work's status as somehow more than just a piece of music, there are many ways in which it doesn't really compare - in instrumentation, for example, where Saul is much more impressive. In addition, this, and Theodora, Jephtha and most other examples, what we have is a moral drama rather than a song of praise.

Also, carrying on from what Ian says, appreciating any music from the past involves some degree of "putting oneself in the mind" of its contemporaries (however objectively one might like to do this), and naturally enough the further one goes back in histor (or geography for that matter), the more important this becomes. Much of the ars subtilior repertoire, for example, contains references and "in-jokes" whose intent is very difficult to decipher, let alone understand. In comparison to this, Handel's God is a relatively familiar character.

See you there.

A production concept is already hatching   And those army-surplus costumes are so budget-friendly