From operatic music he turned to oratorio. The Duke of Chandos, who lived in almost regal state at his palace at Cannons, maintained an orchestra and choir, so that the musical services of his private chapel might be as nearly perfect as possible. To Handel he offered the post of musical director, and thus, in church music, the great composer's genius found a new outlet. The wonderful old Bible stories, with their vigour and dramatic force, and the stately Bible language, with its rich simplicity, strongly appealed to him, and it is because of his oratorios and cantatas rather than through his other works, that the name and the memory of Handel remain for ever fresh among us. "Esther" was his first great work in this new line, first performed in a private house at Westminster by the children of the Chapel Royal, assisted by the choristers of the Abbey. So pleased were the guests, that a few days later the performance was repeated at the Crown and Anchor tavern in the Strand, and would further have been given at the Opera House, had not the Bishop of London refused permission for any choristers to take part. Eventually, with a new band of singers, the oratorio was publicly given, by the king's command, in the Haymarket Theatre, "with a great number of voices and instruments," and it was specially announced that "there would be no acting on the stage, though the house would be fitted up in a decent manner for the audience." To this performance came all the royal family, while so great was the crowd, that hundreds were turned empty away, and six extra performances had to be at once arranged for.
"Deborah" and "Athaliah" soon followed, also "Acis and Galatea," which latter, though not sacred music, served to increase his popularity, his audiences numbering thousands. A great blow to him was the death of Queen Caroline, his kindest, most sympathetic friend, and in composing the anthem for her funeral in the Abbey he wrote from the depths of his sorrowing heart. Nothing could exceed the pathos or the sweetness of that music, with its undercurrent of desolate grief, and when, in the February of 1901, the Abbey was thronged with a great representative assembly, there to pay a last tribute of reverence to another queen, this anthem rang once more through the old walls.