the choruses "The Sons of Israel Do Mourn" and "How Is the Mighty Fallen". Part Two An announcement is made that a new Pharaoh has come to the throne who does not look kindly on the Israelites. God chooses Moses to lead his people out of bondage. A series of plagues falls on Egypt: the rivers turn to blood; a plague of frogs affects the land; lice crawled on man and beast; wild animals destroy everything; the Egyptian livestock get sick and die; blotches and blisters break out on the skin of man and beast; hailstorms blight the country; locusts appear and destroy all the crops; palpable darkness descends; and, finally, the eldest born sons of all the Egyptians are struck down dead. The ruler of Egypt agrees to let the Israelites depart, but changes his mind and pursues them. The Red Sea miraculously parts to let the Israelites cross in safety, but when the pursuing Egyptians try to cross, the waters engulf them and they are drowned. Part Three The Israelites celebrate their deliverance. A series of joyful choruses are included in the third part, with the piece concluding with a soprano solo and chorus proclaiming that 'the Lord shall reign for ever and ever' and 'the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea'. Very early wax cylinder recording of excerpt For a long time, the earliest known recording of music known to still exist was an excerpt from this oratorio conducted by August Manns. The recording was of 4,000 singers singing "Moses and the Children of Israel" in the Crystal Palace Handel Festival of June 29, 1888, recorded by Col. George Gouraud on Edison's yellow paraffin cylinder. The limitations of recording technology at that time, together with the number of voices, the distance of the recording device from the singers (about 100 yards away), and the acoustics of the Crystal Palace, mean that the recorded sound was dim to begin with, and it has since then become badly degraded. What survives is barely audible but still identifiable by ear and gives some insight into performance practices at the height of the Handel Festival phenomenon. References External links Full-text libretto hosted by Stanford Three small excerpts in mp3 & ogg by Swiss choir and orchestra on period instruments Very Early Recorded Sound, mp3 excerpt of the 1888 recording. Oratorios by George Frideric Handel 1739 compositions Oratorios