and also made extensive use of musical parody, the re-working of music by other composers. For the opening part of Israel in Egypt Handel slightly re-wrote his 1737 Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline, "The Ways of Zion do Mourn", and he adapted two of his keyboard fugues, a chorus from his Dixit Dominus and an aria from one of his Chandos Anthems. From Alessandro Stradella's wedding serenata Qual prodigio é ch’io miri, Handel took the music for his "plague" choruses "He spake the word,” “He gave them hailstones,” “But as for his people/He led them,” and “And believed the Lord,” as well as the Part II chorus “The people shall hear/All th’inhabitants of Canaan.”. From a Magnificat setting by Dionigi Erba, Handel took most or part of the music for “He rebuked the Red Sea,” “The Lord is my Strength,” “He is my God,” “The Lord is a Man of War,” “The depths have covered them/Thy right Hand, o Lord,” “Thou sentest forth thy wrath,” “And with the blast of thy nostrils,” “Who is like unto Thee,” and “Thou in thy mercy.” Other composers Handel parodied in Israel in Egypt were Jean-Philippe Rameau, Johann Caspar Kerll, Francesco Antonio Urio, Nicolaus Adam Strungk and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. Much more than the previous works by Handel which were designed, like Israel in Egypt, to attract paying audiences to a commercial venture in a privately owned theatre, the piece lays overwhelming emphasis on the chorus. As an added attraction, the small baroque orchestra accompanying was also used for an organ concerto, the Cuckoo and the Nightingale, which served as an interlude. However, London audiences at that time were not used to such extensive choral pieces presented as commercial entertainment, and perhaps particularly the opening dirge, of about thirty minutes in length, for the death of Joseph, adapted from the funeral anthem for a recently deceased Queen, contributed to the failure of Israel in Egypt at its first performance. Handel quickly revised the work, omitting the opening "Lamentations" section and adding Italian-style arias of the kind contemporary audiences expected and enjoyed. In its two sectioned form, Israel in Egypt was very popular in the 19th century with choral societies. Today many performances of the work use Handel's original three part version. Synopsis Part One The Israelites mourn the death of Joseph, Israelite and favoured adviser to Pharaoh, King of Egypt. The first part includes