Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Handel's Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought
  • Cited by 40
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
September 2009
Print publication year:
1995
Online ISBN:
9780511470240
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511470240
Subjects:
Music, History, Eighteenth-Century Music, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
Information

Book description

In this wide-ranging and challenging book, Ruth Smith shows that the words to Handel's oratorios reflect the events and ideas of their time and have far greater meaning than has hitherto been realized. She explores literature, music, aesthetics, politics and religion to reveal Handel's works as conduits for eighteenth-century thought and sensibility. She provides a full picure of Handel's librettists and shows how their oratorio texts express key moral-political preoccupations and engage with contemporary ideological debate. British identity, the need for national unity, the conduct of war, the role of government, the authority of the Bible, the purpose of literature, the effect of art - these and many more concerns are addressed in the librettos. The book thus enriches our understanding of Handel, his times, and the relationships between music and its intellectual contexts.

Awards

Winner of the 1996 Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, awarded by the British Academy

Reviews

‘Ruth Smith’s stimulating and instructive study of Handel’s Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought offers a sweeping recontextualization of the repertory for which Handel is best known ... demonstrates the potential rewards of a truly crossdisciplinary study of Handel’s oeuvre that takes into account the immensely dynamic world in which he lived. We can hope future studies will, like this one, draw on aesthetics, history, literature, politics, religion, and of course music to explore the full contexts and meanings of Handel’s works.’Eighteenth-Century Studies

‘... a wealth of potential meaning is uncovered here which will enrich the work of future scholars.’

Source: Early Music Review

‘This is a book which, like the oratorios themselves, will both delight and instruct, bringing a new and fuller understanding of what those extraordinary works meant to their first audiences.’

Source: Kenneth Nott Musical Times

‘If ever there was a body of work which needed a fresh look, surely this is it, and this is what Ruth Smith offers in her lively and challenging book.’

Source: Musical Times

‘… highly interesting and suggestive book.’

Source: British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.