The setting is a scene from classical antiquity: Alexander the Great, after his defeat of Darius and the Persians in 331 B.C., is celebrating the victory with a banquet, at which the famous flute-player, Timotheus, entertains the guests with music.

Like Orpheus reborn, Timotheus, singing and playing the flute and the lyre, is able to inspire and arouse in his listeners a range of intense emotions - sense of sublime divinity, bacchanalian joy, martial zeal, heartfelt pity, tender love, and even fiery revenge. The princes applaud, with a furious joy; And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;

Then Cecilia appears and by giving men the instrument of heavenly harmony - the organ - she extends the benefits of music beyond those influences which Timotheus exerted. At last, divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame; The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, Enlarg'd the former narrow bounds, And added length to solemn sounds. In conclusion the poet decides that Cecilia and Timotheus should divide the musical crown between them. Let old Timotheus yield the prize, Or both divide the Crown: He rais'd a mortal to the skies; She drew an angel down.

Completed on January 17, 1736 and produced at Covent Garden in London on February 19, Alexander's Feast became one of Handel's most admired compositions. It was produced once more in February, and three times in March. Later Handel repeatedly revived it whenever, with his audiences diminishing, he wanted a "sure-fire" attraction. Altogether it was given eighteen times between 1737 and 1743, and eight times in the following decade. It was published in full in Handel's lifetime; a notable distinction accorded to only one other of his choral works, Acis and Galatea.

Alexander's Feast was a product of Handel's mature years, mature both in the musical sense and in the sense that he was by then well established in London both as a composer and an impresario. With the Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne we go back to 1713, when Handel was not even "officially" settled in England.

On leave of absence in London from his position at the Hanover court in 1712, Handel was invited to produce an English Court Ode for Queen Anne's birthday. The Queen normally took little interest in her composers, being (according to the Duke of Manchester) "too busy or too careless to listen to her own band, and had no thought of hearing and paying new players however great their genius or vast their skill". It is surprising, therefore, that she granted Handel a pension of £200 a year for life.

On the other hand, it was Anne who presided over England's dramatic defeat of France, in which John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, put an end to the expansionist ambitions of King Louis XIV and twelve years of war. This Ode is therefore one of great joy and celebration, which Handel captures in his music just as confidently as in Alexander's Feast though in a noticeably more youthful style.