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Handel’s cantatas represent an important musical repertoire that until recently has been little known. Consisting of about 100 separate works, most were written over a period of a few years for private performance in Italy. They range from musical miniatures containing only two arias connected by recitative and accompanied by continuo to larger works with named characters, a dramatic story, and rich instrumental forces. Telling more often than not about the pangs of love, these are intimate works, with texts frequently written by (and sometimes about) members of the privileged audience for which they were composed.

The serenata Polifemo opens with an overture for which Bononcini adopts the formal model of the two-part French ouverture in which a slower section with dotted rhythms is followed by a quicker section often involving fugal textures. Bononcini combines his French model with the Italian concerto principle with its multiple choirs of instruments: here the wind ensemble alternates in the quick section with the strings. Although it is in only one act, Polifemo is made up of no fewer than twenty musical numbers: seventeen arias, two duets and one chorus. With a single exception, these numbers are cast in da capo form. Some have no instrumental prelude, whereas eight end with a postlude described as a “ritornello”, with elaborately worked-out parts for the instrumentalists. These postludes presumably allowed preparations to be made for the following action.