Musicians - George Frideric Handel

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	Musicians - George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel (or Georg Friedrich Händel in German) (February 23, 1685 – April 14, 1759) was a German Baroque composer who was a leading composer of concerti grossi, operas and oratorios. He lived most of his life in Great Britain. His most famous piece is Messiah, an oratorio set to texts from the King James Bible; other well-known works are Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks. He deeply influenced many of the composers who came after him, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and his style helped lead the transition from the Baroque to the Classical era.

Biography

Handel was born at Halle in Saxony in 1685, coincidentally in the same year that both Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti were born. He displayed considerable musical talent at an early age, by the age of seven he was a skilful performer on the harpsichord and organ, and at nine he began to compose music. However his father, a barber-surgeon to the court of Saxe-Weissenfels, opposed George Frideric pursuing a musical career, preferring him to study law. Nevertheless, the young Handel was permitted to take lessons in musical composition and keyboard techniques from Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau, the organist of Liebfrauenkirche, Halle.

In 1702, in obedience to his father's wishes, he began the study of law at the University of Halle, but after his father's death the following year, he abandoned law for music, becoming the organist at the Calvinist Cathedral. The following year he moved to Hamburg, accepting a position as violinist in the orchestra of the opera-house at Hamburg. Here his first two operas, Almira and Nero, were produced early in 1705. Two other early operas, Daphne and Florindo, were produced at Hamburg in 1708. During the years 1707-1709 Handel traveled and studied in Italy. When opera was banned by local authorities, Handel found work as a composer of sacred music and wrote some pieces in operatic style. The famous Dixit Dominus (1707) is from this era. His Rodrigo was produced at Florence in 1707, and his Agrippina at Venice in 1708. Two oratorios, La Resurrezione and Il Trionfo del Tempo, were produced at Rome in 1709 and 1710, respectively.

In 1710 Handel became Kapellmeister to George, Elector of Hanover, who would soon be George I of Great Britain. He visited London in 1710 and settled there permanently in 1712, receiving a yearly income of £200 from Queen Anne. In 1726 Handel's opera Scipio (Scipione) was performed for the first time, the march from which remains the regimental slow march of the British Grenadier Guards. He was naturalised a British subject in the same year.

In 1727 Handel was commissioned to write four anthems for the coronation ceremony of King George II. One of these, Zadok the Priest, has been played at every coronation ceremony since. Handel was director of the Royal Academy of Music 1720-1728, and a partner of J. J. Heidegger in the management of the King's Theatre 1729-1734. Handel also had a long association with the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, where many of his Italian operas were premiered. Handel gave up operatic management entirely in 1740, after he had lost a fortune in the business. In 1751 he became blind, and died some eight years later in London. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

He never married. His personal life was very private.

Works

Handel's compositions include some fifty operas, twenty-three oratorios, and a large amount of church music, not to speak of his superb instrumental pieces, such as the organ concerti, the Opus 6 Concerti Grossi, the Water Music, and the Fireworks Music.

After his death, Handel's Italian operas fell into obscurity, save the odd fragment, such as the ubiquitous aria from Serse, "Ombra mai fu"; his reputation throughout the 19th century and first half of the 20th century, particularly in the anglophone countries, rested primarily on his English oratorios, which were customarily performed by enormous choruses of amateur singers on solemn occasions. These include Esther (1720); Saul (1739); Israel in Egypt (1739); Messiah (1742); Samson (1743); Judas Maccabaeus (1747); Solomon (1748), and Jephtha (1752).

Since the 1960s, with the revival of interest in baroque music and original instrument playing styles, interest has revived in Handel's Italian operas, and many have been recorded and performed onstage. Of the fifty he wrote between 1705 and 1738, Alcina (1735), Ariodante (1735), Orlando (1733), Rinaldo (1711, 1731), Rodelinda (1725), and Serse (also known as Xerxes) (1738) stand out and are now performed regularly in opera houses and concert halls. Arguably the finest, however, is Giulio Cesare (1724) which, thanks to its superb orchestral and vocal writing, has entered the mainstream opera repertoire.

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