One of Handel’s greatest oratorios, with stunning choruses, Solomon is a wonderful combination of the contemplative, the dramatic and the lyrical. Handel brings to life a picture of the Golden Age where religion, justice, nature and art are all in harmony, and, as ever, he gives expression to a wide range of human emotions. Highlights include the paean to married love in the first part, with the nightingale chorus; the dramatic music for the quarrel over the baby in part two; and in the final part the justly celebrated overture ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’, the choral masque in praise of music, and the queen’s exquisite final aria, ‘Will the Sun forget to streak/ Eastern skies with amber ray’.