The Occasional Oratorio

I don't often get the chance to sit down and listen to an oratorio just for pleasure, but a few travel days recently meant I had more uninterrupted listening time. I packed Handel's Occasional Oratorio, which I hadn't got off the CD shelf for a few years. What a piece! 1745 may well have been a bad year for Handel (as Robert King states in his sleeve notes) but looking at this piece from a distance of several hundred years, I can only conclude that the difficult year produced an AMAZING work. Yes, there are borrowings and re-heatings, but the music, not to mention the text is so strong. Many favourites reappear, including Zadok the Priest. What's not to like? Now to raise funds to put on a performance!