George Frideric Handel
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George Frideric Handel, 1733 |
George Frideric Handel (
February 23,
1685 â€"
April 14,
1759) was a German/British
Baroque composer who was a leading composer of
concerti grossi,
operas and
oratorios. Born in
Germany as
Georg Friedrich Händel (), he lived most of his adult life in
England, becoming a subject of the
British crown in 1727. 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 work helped lead the transition from the Baroque to the Classical era.
|
House in Halle where Handel was born |
Handel was born at
Halle in
Saxony in 1685, 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, was opposed to 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 the 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 in
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 April 1737, aged 52, he suffered a
stroke or other injury which left his right arm temporarily
paralysed and stopped him from performing. He also complained that he had trouble focusing after the event.
In August,
1750, on a journey back from Germany to London, Handel was seriously injured in a carriage accident between
The Hague and
Haarlem in the
NetherlandsMedia
See List of compositions by George Frideric Handel â€" text availability in listing & additional ones in "Texts â€" Other" category.
* Burrows, Donald. Handel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 019816470X
* Harris, Ellen T. (general editor) The librettos of Handel's operas: a collection of seventy librettos documenting Handel's operatic career New York: Garland, 1989. ISBN 0824038622
* Hogwood, Christopher. Handel. London: Thames and Hudson, 1984. ISBN 0500013551
* Keates, Jonathan. Handel, the man and his music. London: V. Gollancz, 1985. ISBN 0575035730* List of compositions by George Frideric Handel
* :Category:Compositions by George Frideric Handel
* :Category:Operas by George Frideric Handel
* List of choral works
* General reference
** GFHandel.org, by Brad Leissa and David Vickers â€" Excellent all-around Handel site.
** Haendel.it (entire site in Italian)
* Scores
**
** The Mutopia Project provides free downloading of sheet music and MIDI files for some of Handel's works.
**
* Recordings
** Handel cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
** Organ Concertos op. 4 Creative Commons MP3 Recording
* Specific topics
** Handel House Museum
** Handel House in Halle
** Handel Festival in Halle â€" 8 June to 18 June 2006
