ABSTRACT
One of the most important dates in Handel's biography is 6 May 1732, when he introduced an English oratorio for the first time into his performing seasons at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, hitherto devoted solely to Italian opera. During the last weeks of the 1732-33 seasons he composed another oratorio score, Athalia, completing it on 7 June. Athalia was nevertheless generically comparable to the London works, and there is no reason why Handel could not, in the right circumstances, have represented the work in London with only minor alterations. However, the circumstances were not right. The re-investigation of Handel's 1735 version of Athalia involves four kinds of sources: autograph musical material, Handel's performing score, secondary manuscript and printed musical sources, and relevant printed wordbooks containing the libretto. Traces of the 1735 Italian insertions can be found in the conducting score of Athalia.
