| Popis: |
In common with Handel’s other oratorios which invoke the wishful analogy between Old Testament Israel and contemporary Britain, Handel’s and Hamilton’s Samson radically diverges from its principal source text, Milton’s Samson Agonistes. National unity replaces heroic singularity, fellow-feeling replaces spiritual growth, and the salvation hoped for is Christian as well as temporal. Contra Milton, communal righteousness culminates in an uplifting funeral sequence and a vision of heaven. Originating a Philistine chorus from Milton’s psalm translations, Hamilton gives scope to Handel’s customary progression by contrast. Assertive, homophonic, dance-metre Philistine choruses and lilting airs are pitted against the prayers of the chosen nation, in which Handel deploys all the musical elements of his period’s most esteemed form of rhetoric, the religious sublime, for which his music was especially admired. |
