As warrior hero and national liberator, Judah Maccabee has inspired many writers, and several artists and composers. In the Divine Comedy, Dante sees the spirit of Judas Maccabeus in the Heaven of Mars with the other "heroes of the true faith". In Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, Judas Maccabeus is enacted along with the other Nine Worthies, but heckled for sharing a name with Judas Iscariot.

 

Peter-Paul Rubens painted this scene in 1635-36 for an altar, commissioned by Maximilien Vilain le Grand, Bishop of Tournai.  

Today the picture is displayed in the Museum of Nantes - Musee de Beaux-Arts, inv. no. 429. (The photo presented here was taken by P. Jean. By courtesy of the Museum of Nantes).

 

Rubens painted Judah Maccabee praying for the dead; the painting illustrates an episode from II Maccabees 12:39-48 in which Judah's troops found stolen idolatrous charms on the corpses of Jewish warriors slain on the battlefield.  He therefore offered prayers and an expiatory sacrifice for these warriors who had died in a state of sin.  During the Counter-Reformation the passage was used by Catholics against Protestants in order to justify the doctrine of purgatory.  Accordingly, Rubens painted the scene for the Chapel of the Dead in Tournai cathedral. In the 19th century, Paul Gustave Doré executed an engraving of Judah Maccabee victoriously pursuing the shattered troops of the Syrian enemy.

 

In music, almost all the compositions inspired by the Hasmonean revolt are primarily concerned with Judah.  In 1746, the composer George Frideric Handel composed his oratorio Judas Maccabeus putting the biblical story in the context of the Jacobite Rising; one of the themes is used as the tune for the popular Christian Easter hymn Thine Be The Glory, Risen Conquering Son.

 

This work, with libretto by Thomas Morrell, had been written for the celebrations following the Duke of Cumberland's victory over the Scottish Jacobite rebels at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. The oratorio's most famous chorus is "See, the conqu'ring hero comes." Handel's Judas Maccabaeus was often performed in the Land of Israel, with the motif of "conqu'ring hero" becoming a Hanukkah song.

March brings the exciting Bach Birthday Gala at Gladwyne Presbyterian Church on 3/22 featuring Darlene Kelsey (soloist), Nicole Lambert (flute) and Maestro Radu on piano and organ.

 

The March concerts continue on 3/27 at the Kimmel Center with the performance of Mozart's Requiem, followed by a repeat performance for our audience at Daylesford Abbey on 3/29!

 

In April on 4/17 we return to the Kimmel Center for Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, showcasing the debut of Camerata Ama Deus at the Kimmel!

 

The 2008-2009 tributes to Handel will continue at the final concert of our season in May with Handelfest at Daylesford Abbey on 5/31. 

 

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