The start of the year 1740 was a bad time for Handel. The Italian opera was in crisis, a situation exacerbated by the closure of London's theaters due to the most severe winter in the capital's recorded history. To make matters worse he had recently suffered the first of a series of strokes. It is remarkable that it was during this time that Handel produced one of his freshest, most appealing scores, one of the few of his works to retain undiminished popularity for the remainder of the century. Like Alexander's Feast, composed four years earlier, L'Allegro, il Pensoroso, ed il Moderato is one of Handel's English works that falls into no distinctive musical category. Described as a "pastoral ode," the text is based on John Milton's pair of allegorical poems, L'Allegro and Il Pensoroso (ca. 1632), the titles of which refer to the humors of cheerfulness and thoughtfulness, the extrovert and introvert sides of man's character respectively. Handel's librettist Charles Jennens (who later provided him with the text of Messiah) juxtaposed Milton's two poems in order to provide alternating contrasted passages, adding for good measure in a typically Enlightenment gesture a third section extolling the merits of moderation over extremes of temperament. This third part of the work is noticeably weaker than those involving Milton's poetry, and for a time, was often dropped. However, to do so is to lose the soprano/tenor duet "As steals the morn." The alternation of cheerful and reflective moods set for soloists and chorus (solo and choral numbers are often combined in the manner familiar from Purcell's vocal works) gave Handel the opportunity to produce a wonderfully varied score that echoes both the joys and peace of the English countryside and the bustle of urban life. Richly orchestrated for trumpets, timpani, horn, flute, oboes, bassoons, and strings, Handel evokes a range of the color that runs a gamut between the somber bassoon-darkened texture of the opening recitative to the joyous pealing of a carillon in "Or let the merry bells." L'Allegro was first given at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln's Inn Fields on February 27, 1740, the audience enticed by the promise that the theater would be "secur'd against the cold." It was an immediate success, receiving five further performances by the end of the season, in addition to being quickly taken up by the provincial festivals springing up in England at this time.

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