L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato HWV 55

Handel’s oratorio L’Allegro , il Penseroso ed il Moderato is based on two poems of 1623 by John Milton. Their main focus draws on merriment, as expressed in the joys of dawn, the hunt, a pastoral idyll and thriving towns, and on melancholy, as felt in the coolness of the nocturnal forest, the song of the nightingale, and the observation of the stars.

The librettist, Charles Jennens , contrasts these two antipodes with a third vehicle for the emotions: “ il Moderato”, who sees happiness in the moderation of these two extremes. Unlike his two preceding oratorios “Saul” and “ Israel in Egypt ”, which centered on the dramatic and the epic, here Handel has written a lyric work that gives broad latitude to the musical depiction of nature.

The piano reduction, by Andreas Köhs , follows the Urtext of the Halle Handel Edition.