This week, as part of the BBC's Eighteenth Century season, Donald Macleod explores the music Handel composed for the Georges, I and II, and to commemorate major events in their reigns.

Today, explosions both warlike and peaceful. On the 19th of August 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie pitched up on the coast of Scotland for one last crack at toppling the house of Hanover ? thereby setting in train a chain of events that's become known to history as the Jacobite Rising of '45. Charles and his Highlanders made it as far south as Derby before being turned back and eventually routed at the Battle of Culloden. In response, Handel went into patriotic overdrive; his oratorio Judas Maccabaeus celebrates the hero of the hour, Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. With the Jacobites quelled, British troops could be redeployed on the Continent in the continuing conflict over the Austrian Succession. Its resolution in the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle gave Handel another opportunity for sonic celebration: his Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Judas Maccabaeus, HWV 63, (Act 3; 'See, the conqu'ring hero comes!')
Choir of New College, Oxford
King's Consort
Robert King (conductor)

Occasional Oratorio, HWV 62; Ouverture
The English Concert
Trevor Pinnock, harpsichord and direction

'From scourging rebellion (A Song on the Victory obtained over the Rebels)', HWV 228 no.9
Charles Daniels, Andrew Carwood, Simon Davies, tenors
Adrian Butterfield, violin
Katherine Sharman, cello
David Miller, theorbo
Paul Nicholson, harpsichord

Judas Maccabaeus, HWV 63 (Act 1; conclusion)
Emma Kirkby, soprano (Israelitish Woman)
Catherine Denley, mezzo-soprano (Israelitish Man)
Jamie MacDougall, tenor (Judas Maccabaeus)
Choir of New College, Oxford
King's Consort
Robert King, conductor

Music for the Royal Fireworks, HWV 351 (original version) The English Concert
Trevor Pinnock, harpsichord and direction

Producer: Chris Barstow. Show less