arkable
success. The London "Daily Post," on the morning after its production,
said:--

"Never was upon the like Occasion so numerous and splendid an Audience
at any Theatre in London, there being at least 1,300 Persons present;
and it is judged that the Receipt of the House could not amount to less
than L450."

It was repeated four times, and then withdrawn to make room for "Acis and
Galatea" and the oratorio of "Esther." In March, 1737, it was revived,
with two additional choruses made by Hamilton for the work; and upon the
same occasion an Italian cantata in praise of Saint Cecilia was sung.

It is unnecessary to inform the reader of the nature of a poem familiar
the world over. The overture is written for strings and two oboes.
Throughout the work the orchestration is thin, bassoons and horns being
the only instruments added to those named above; but in 1790 Mozart
amplified the accompaniments,--an improvement which he also made for the
score of "Acis and Galatea." The great solos of the composition are the
furious aria, "'Revenge, Revenge!' Timotheus cries," and the descriptive
recitative, "Give the Vengeance due to the valiant Crew," in which Handel
employs his imitative powers with consummate effect. Clouet, in his
"Chants Classiques," says of the passage "And the king seized a flambeau
with zeal to destroy:--

"He paints Alexander issuing forth in the midst of an orgie, arming
himself with a torch, and followed by his generals, running to set fire
to Persepolis. While the accompaniment sparkles with the confused and
unequal glare of the torches, the song expresses truthfully the
precipitation and the tumult of the crowd, the rolling of the flames,
and the living splendor of a conflagration."

The choruses of the work are equally strong, and some of them are among
the best Handel ever wrote, particularly, "He sang Darius great and
good," "Break his Bands of Sleep asunder," "Let old Timotheus yield the
Prize," and "The many rend the Skies with loud Applause." They are as
genuine inspirations as the best choruses of the "Messiah" or of "Israel
in Egypt."

In 1739 Handel also set to music Dryden's shorter "Ode for St. Cecilia's
Day," beginning,

"From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began,"

the music for which had been originally composed in 1687 by Giovanni
Baptista Draghi, an Italian, who was music-master to Queen Anne and Queen
Mary, and at that time was o