An Occasional Oratorio (HWV 62) is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel, based upon a libretto by Newburgh Hamilton after the poetry of John Milton and Edmund Spenser. The work was written in the midst of the Jacobite rising of 1745–1746, the attempt to overthrow Handel's patrons – the Hanoverian monarchy under George II – and replace them with a Stuart restoration under Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie". The Occasional Oratorio is unique among Handel's works which he labelled "oratorio" in that it does not tell a story or contain elements of a drama, but was intended as a defiant and patriotic rallying piece.[1]
- ^ Smither, Howard E. (2011). A History of the Oratorio: Vol. 2: the Oratorio in the Baroque Era: Protestant Germany and England. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0807837757.