The Choice of Hercules, in which the legendary hero has to choose between Pleasure and Virtue, has served since Classical times as a popular allegory of the moral choices faced by the individual. In the eighteenth century it also acted as a reminder to absolutist monarchs of their responsibilities to their subjects, as shown in two little-known masterpieces by J.S. Bach and Handel.

Bach wrote Hercules auf dem Scheidewege (Hercules at the Crossroads)BWV213 for the birthday of the Crown Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony, and performed it in the garden of Zimmerman’s coffee house in Leipzig during the afternoon of 5 September 1733.

Much of the music will be familiar because it was later reused in the Christmas Oratorio, though there are some intriguing differences between the two versions. Handel wrote The Choice of Hercules HWV69 for a performance at the Covent Garden theatre in London on 1 March 1751. He had written some of the music, including Hercules’s beautiful air ‘Yet, can I hear that dulcet lay’, the previous year as part of incidental music for Tobias Smollett’s unperformed play Alceste, though it works equally well in the new setting, and there are some sparkling new movements, including a lively air with horns for Pleasure and a dramatic trio for the three main protagonists.

Tom Williams sings with a number of leading vocal ensembles including Polyphony, the Choir of the Enlightenment and Exaudi.  He has recently sung solo in Paris and in Mozart’s Requiem in Leicester.