page_title: Samson (Handel)
section_title: Background and Composition
hierarchical_section_title: Samson (Handel) / Background and Composition
caption_attribution_description: Covent-Garden Theatre: This engraving was published as Plate 27 of Microcosm of London (1808) (see File:Microcosm of London Plate 027 - Covent Garden Theatre.jpg).
context_page_description: Samson is a three-act oratorio by George Frideric Handel, considered one of his finest dramatic works. It is usually performed as an oratorio in concert form, but on occasions has also been staged as an opera. The well-known arias "Let the bright Seraphim" and "Total eclipse" are often performed separately in concert.
context_section_description: The German-born Handel had been resident in London since 1712 and had there enjoyed great success as a composer of Italian operas. His opportunities to set English texts to music had been more limited. He had spent the years 1717 to 1719 as composer in residence to the wealthy Duke of Chandos, where he had written church anthems and two stage works, Acis and Galatea and Esther. He had composed vocal music to English words for various royal occasions, including a set of Coronation anthems for George II in 1727, which had made a huge impact. In 1731, a performance of the 1718 version of Esther, a work in English based on a Biblical drama by Jean Racine, was given in London without Handel's participation and had proved popular. He thus revised the work and planned to present it at the theatre where his Italian operas were being presented. However, the Bishop of London would not permit a drama based on a Biblical story to be acted out on the stage; Handel therefore presented Esther in concert form, thus giving birth to the English oratorio.
  Esther in its revised form proved a popular work, and Handel, though still continuing to focus on composition of Italian operas, followed it with two more sacred dramas with English words to be presented in concert form, Deborah, and Athalia (which, like Esther, was also based on a Biblical drama by Racine), both in 1733.
  Such was the success of his oratorios in English that eventually Handel abandoned Italian opera, his last being Deidamia in 1741, and produced a string of masterpieces of oratorio in English.
  Handel began the composition of Samson immediately after completing Messiah on 14 September 1741. It uses a libretto by Newburgh Hamilton, who based it on Milton's Samson Agonistes, which in turn was based on the figure Samson in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges. Handel completed the first act on 20 September 1741, the second act on 11 October that year, and the whole work on 29 October. Shortly after that he travelled to Dublin to put on the premiere of Messiah, returning to London at the end of August 1742 and thoroughly revising Samson.
  The premiere was given at Covent Garden in London on 18 February 1743, with the incidental organ music probably the recently completed concerto in A major  (HWV 307).  The oratorio was a great success, leading to a total of seven performances in its first season, the most in a single season of any of his oratorios. Samson retained its popularity throughout Handel's lifetime and has never fallen entirely out of favor since.
caption: A picture of the theatre at Covent Garden where Samson was first performed
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