COMPOSER : George Frideric Handel

ARRANGER : Peter Bray

The cantata celebrates Queen Anne's birthday, and the accomplishment of the Treaty of Utrecht (negotiated by the Tory ministry of Anne in 1712) to end the War of the Spanish Succession. It was scored for 3 solo voices, choir and chamber orchestra.

Queen Anne was said by the Duke of Manchester to be "too careless or too busy to listen to her own band, and had no thought of hearing and paying new players however great their genius or vast their skill." Nevertheless, and whether or not she ever heard this ode for her birthday, she granted Handel a "pension" (subsidy for living expenses) of two hundred pounds a year, for life

Here is the delightful arrangement for Soprano Cornet and Bb Cornet with Brass Band Accompaniment