2. Handel composed Italian operas for the Royal Academy of Music from 1720 until 1727. In 1728 a change in taste forced the company to stop producing operas, so Handel took over the theater in 1729.
3. In 1739 Handel started to compose oratorios because subscriptions to the operas were dwindling.
4. Handel's oratorios were in English and appealed to a middle-class public.
5. His first oratorio of this period was Saul, and the second was The Messiah.
6. Every year during Lent he produced oratorios, and he improvised at the organ during the intermissions.
7. Because of the popularity of his oratorios, England considered Handel's music a national institution, and he was buried at Westminster Abbey.