The Ger­man-born George Frid­er­ic Han­del moved to Lon­don in 1712 and remained there until his death in 1759. My first mem­o­ry that involves Han­del was a piece of music called Water Music, pos­si­bly from some sheet music my grand­ma had but equal­ly pos­si­bly not (it’s one of those ear­ly “not sure where” mem­o­ries). It was com­posed in 1717 in response to a request from King George I for a con­cert on the Thames. Han­del was obvi­ous­ly well in with the Court; ten years after Water Music he was com­mis­sioned to write four anthems for the Coro­na­tion cer­e­mo­ny of King George II. One of these, the glo­ri­ous Zadok the Priest, has been played at every British coro­na­tion cer­e­mo­ny since.

Anoth­er notable com­po­si­tion of Han­del’s was Music for the Roy­al Fire­works in 1749, writ­ten for a “par­ty in the park” to cel­e­brate the end of the War of the Aus­tri­an Suc­ces­sion. Mozart called it a “spec­ta­cle of Eng­lish pride and joy”. A year lat­er, Han­del arranged a per­for­mance of his famous Mes­si­ah to ben­e­fit Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hos­pi­tal in Lon­don. The per­for­mance was con­sid­ered a great suc­cess and was fol­lowed by annu­al con­certs that con­tin­ued through­out his life – an ear­ly fore­run­ner of our “ben­e­fit con­certs” today.

It is, how­ev­er, Handel’s piece from his great opera Solomon, name­ly the open­ing instru­men­tal of Act III, Arrival of the Queen of She­ba, that I’m show­cas­ing today. If you don’t already know it from its name, you will instant­ly recog­nise it when you play it below. It has been used exten­sive­ly for any­thing that could ben­e­fit from some viva­cious “pro­ces­sion­al” music (includ­ing the 2012 Lon­don Olympics open­ing cer­e­mo­ny in which the music accom­pa­nies Daniel Craig’s James Bond as he meets the Queen at Buck­ing­ham Palace) and you can hear why: it’s a joy­ous romp of vio­lins and oboes.

The wider piece, Solomon, was wide­ly recog­nised by com­men­ta­tors of the day as a eulo­gy for Geor­gian Eng­land, with the just and wise King Solomon rep­re­sent­ing King George II, and the mighty, pros­per­ous king­dom of Israel reflect­ing the sim­i­lar­ly hap­py state of Eng­land at the time of the work’s pre­miere. Also, since it was in Eng­lish (Han­del had writ­ten his operas in Ital­ian up until Mes­si­ah in 1742), it became huge­ly pop­u­lar with the pub­lic. So put some san­dals on, grab your palm, and wel­come the Queen of She­ba as she dis­em­barks!