The Beggar's Opera piece satirised Italian opera, which had become popular in London. According to "The New York Times": "Gay wrote the work more as an anti-opera than an opera, one of its attractions to its 18th-century London public being its lampooning of the Italian opera style and the English public's fascination with it." Instead of the grand music and themes of opera, the work uses familiar tunes and characters that were ordinary people. Some of the songs were by opera composers like Handel, but only the most popular of these were used. The audience could hum along with the music and identify
Baroque music of the British Isles for the Royal Fireworks". His opera, including "Rinaldo" (1711, 1731), "Orlando" (1733), "Ariodante" (1735), "Alcina" (1735) and "Serse" (1738, also known as "Xerxes"), helped make Britain second only to Italy as a centre of operatic production. His sacred drama and choral music, particularly the coronation anthem "Zadok the Priest" (written for the inauguration of George II in 1727) which has remained part of the ceremony for British monarchs, and above all, the "Messiah", helped set the British taste in music for the next 200 years. He was a major influence on future classical composers including Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Ballad