Handel - Air: "Will the Sun Forget to Streak" - from "Solomon" (HWV 67)

Solomon is one of my favourite Handel Oratorios - it is full of marvellous arias and choruses, and includes the famous sinfonia, nicknamed the "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba". This song, from Act Three: "Will the Sun Forget to Streak" is affectingly performed here by Barbara Hendricks.

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Les Robarts writes: "This is arguably the most plangently nostalgic air that Handel ever wrote, and its heart-stopping quality in Solomon relies on the stark contrast with the magnificent choral pageant that precedes it".

Text:

Solomon, Act Three - Air

Queen of Sheba

"Will the sun forget to streak
Eastern skies with amber ray,
When the dusky shades to break
He unbars the gates of day?
Then demand if Sheba's queen
E'er can banish from her thought
All the splendour she has seen,
All the knowledge thou hast taught".

This recording is rightly famous, and won the coveted Penguin Guide rosette in 1985.

Conductor: John Eliot Gardiner
English Baroque Soloists
Soprano: Barbara Hendricks

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