1. February 23, 1685 Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg Parents: Georg
Handel and Dorothea Taust This image is of the Handel-Haus where he
was born.
2. His father was a barber-surgeon who disapproved of music,
and wished Handel to become a lawyer. His father strictly forbade
him to meddle with any musical instrument, but Handel found the
means to get a little clavichord privately conveyed to a room at
the top of the house. At an early age, Handel became a skillful
performer on the harpsichord and pipe organ.
3. In Hamburg, Handel played violin and harpsichord for the
only opera company in Germany that existed outside the royal
courts. Also, he taught private lessons. Handel wrote his first
opera entitled Almira in 1704. In 1710, he was appointed
Kapellmeister at Hanover, but he soon took leave to London. In
1719, he became musical director of the Royal Academy of
Music.
4. When he visited England, he decided to stay. In 1727, Handel
officially applied for and became a British subject and adopted
England as his new country. When King George I died, Handel wrote
the anthems for the coronation of the new king. Zadok the Priest,
one of Handels compositions, is still performed today at British
coronations. In January 1728, Gays Beggars Opera opened at the
theatre in Lincolns Inn Fields. This was significant in that it
marked the beginning of a change in London musical taste and
fashion meaning that it went away from Italian opera in favor of
something less highbrow, more home-grown, and more easily
intelligible.
5. The move from Opera to Oratorio was not of course an
instantaneous one. Handels Esther, which was composed around 1720
for the Duke of Chandos, was performed not in the Chapel at Cannons
but in the "grand saloon" as a costume-stage production. It was
already a "halfway house" between Opera and Oratorio. In 1732,
Handel revised this work and re-presented it at the Haymarket
Theatre. Handel then produced Deborah and Athalia, which Basil Lam
has called "the first great English Oratorio".
6. In April 1737, Handel suffered a stroke or an injury which
seriously affected his right hand. He was exhausted from the
stresses of the last five years and his friends and patrons
wondered whether he would ever play or compose again.
7. Handels compositions include 42 operas, 29 oratorios, more
than 120 cantatas, trios and duets, numerous arias, chamber music,
a large number of ecumenical pieces, odes and serenatas, and 16
organ concerti. In 1749, Handel composed Music for the Royal
Fireworks; 12,000 people attended the first performance. His most
famous work, the oratorio Messiah with its "Hallelujah" chorus, is
among the most popular works in choral music and has become the
centerpiece of the Christmas season.
8. Beethoven so admired Handels work that he wrote it out so as
to get the "feeling of its intricacies" and "to unravel its
complexities. Composed in 1741 First performed in Dublin on 13
April 1742,and received its London premiere nearly ayear
later.Handels Messiah has been described bythe early-music scholar
Richard Luckett as"a commentary on [Jesus Christs]
Nativity,Passion, Resurrection and Ascension,beginning with Gods
promises as spoken bythe prophets and ending with
Christsglorification in heaven.[
9. Handel was seriously injured in a carriage accident between
The Hague and Haarlem in the Netherlands. In 1751, one eye started
to fail. This led to uveitis and subsequent loss of vision. He died
eight years later in 1759 at home in Brook Street at the age of 74.
The last performance he attended was of Messiah. Handel was buried
in Westminster Abbey.
10. Handels works were collected and preserved by two men in
particular: Sir Samuel Hellier, a country squire whose musical
acquisitions form the nucleus of the Shaw-Hellier Collection, and
abolitionist Granville Sharp. Handels music was studied by
composers such as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. After Handels
death, many composers wrote works based on or inspired by his
music. Handel is honored together with Johann Sebastian Bach and
Henry Purcell with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the
Episcopal Church (USA) on 28 July.
11. George Frideric Handel"Handel is thegreatestcomposer
whoever lived.I would bare myhead and kneelat his grave"-- L.
V.Beethoven(1824)
