The Dramatic Element in Handel's Oratorios

Extract

Most musicians are aware that the Victorian attitude to Handel included an element of travesty. They are less aware, with comparatively few exceptions, of the sizeable beam in the eye of to-day. The oratorios, which contain Handel's finest work, have suffered most of all, owing to the peculiar convolutions of the British evangelical conscience. A nation that for half a century regarded the story of Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah as too sacred for stage performance is capable of any kind of artistic imbecility; and Handel's oratorios are still suffering from this sort of approach.