Note 148 — Chapter XIV · HANDEL AND THE ORATORIO

We may remind the reader of the valiant efforts made by Dr. Pepusch and other Anglo-Germans against the English public’s absolute surrender to the Italian opera and Italian monody, holding out for the more serious contrapuntal music of the sixteenth century, and for the use of the native tongue. The immense success of Gay’s ‘Beggar’s Opera’ in 1728 was another proof of this demand for a native popular entertainment.