Airings of Handel's Judas Maccabaeus are now so rare it is easy to forget that it was, in the composer's day and along with Messiah and perhaps Samson, among his most frequently performed oratorios. Nobody present at this electrifying account by a stellar quartet of soloists, the St George's Cathedral Consort, and The Musicians' Table orchestra under the direction of Joseph Nolan would have been left doubting it deserves to regain its former popularity.

Handel wrote Judas Maccabaeus in 1746 in praise of Prince William, duke of Cumberland, who had led the Hanoverian armies to victory over the Jacobite rebels at the Battle of Culloden in April that year. Reverend Thomas Morell's libretto, which draws largely on I Maccabees, recounts the people of Judea's struggle, after the death of their rebellious priest Mattathias and the assumed leadership of the latter's son Judas, to throw off the yoke of the Seleucid Empire's occupying forces. Judas Maccabaeus received its first performance on 1 April 1747 at Covent Garden and was an immediate success.