After arriving in London in 1710 Handel became an astoundingly successful composer of opera.  When public taste began to change, he did so too and concentrated on a new type of composition - biblical oratorio.  His masterpiece 'Israel in Egypt' was written in 1739 and is unusual in presenting and celebrating the story of a people, rather than that of an individual hero.  It sets passages from the Old Testament, mainly from Exodus and the Psalms, and tells the epic story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, together with several plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the destruction of the Egyptian army and a final, grand celebration of God's power.  The synergy between the dramatic story and the music is particularly important; Handel's magnificent choral writing uses a richly varied textural palette of fugues, cantus firmus themes with moving counter-melodies, antiphonal double choirs and thunderous choral homophony in order to best serve the narrative.  Perhaps the most striking feature of this work is Handel's ingenious and imaginative use of word painting; particularly in the evocation of the plagues of frogs, flies, lice and locusts but also in the depiction of hailstones, fire, darkness, floods and galloping horses.