Handel, George Frideric (1685-1759)

Born a German (in Saxony), and by inclination a maestro of Italian opera, it is nonetheless as one of the most English of composers that Handel has long been remembered. However, he did not take out his naturalization papers until 1726, aged 41, around 16 years after he had first made his home in London, England.

A page from an original score of the Messiah by George Frideric Handel, 1741. Using a text compiled by librettist Charles Jennens from the Bible and the Prayer Book Psalter, Handel wrote the work in three parts, representing Christ's birth, death, and resurrection. First performed in Dublin, Ireland, it established the oratorio as a popular form of music in 18th century England.

German-born baroque composer, George Frideric Handel, from a portrait by Thomas Hudson. Known for his operas, oratorios, and instrumental compositions, Handel wrote his most memorable work the Messiah (1741) while recovering from a stroke. He also composed church music, occasional pieces for royal celebrations such as Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749), and the Water Music (1717) for George I's procession along the River Thames.

German composer, a British subject from 1726. His first opera, Almira, was performed in Hamburg in 1705. In 1710 he was appointed Kapellmeister (director) to the Elector of Hanover (the future George I of England). In 1712 he settled in England, where he established his popularity with such works as the Water Music (1717), written for George I. His great choral works include the Messiah (1742) and the later oratorios Samson (1743), Belshazzar (1745), Judas Maccabaeus (1747), and Jephtha (1752).

Visits to Italy in 1706-10 inspired a number of operas and oratorios, and in 1711 his opera Rinaldo was performed in London. Saul and Israel in Egypt (both 1739) were unsuccessful, but his masterpiece, the oratorio Messiah, met with popular approval on its first performance in Dublin, Ireland, in 1742. Other works include the pastoral Acis and Galatea (1718) and a set of variations for harpsichord that were later nicknamed The Harmonious Blacksmith (1720).

Handel was born in Halle, Germany. After some opposition from his father, a barber-surgeon, he studied music with Friedrich Zachau in Halle. In 1702 he enrolled at the university there to read law, while also holding the post of organist at the Domkirche (the Calvinist Church). The next year he abandoned law to become a violinist, and later a harpsichordist, at Keiser's Opera House in Hamburg, and had the operas Almira and Nero staged in 1705. He travelled in Italy in 1706-09, visiting the major cities and meeting the leading composers. Agrippina was successfully produced in Venice in 1709, and he also made a great reputation as a harpsichordist. Other works composed in Italy include the oratorios La resurrezione and Il trionfo del tempo (1707), solo cantatas, chamber duets, and other pieces. In 1710 he was appointed Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover who agreed that he should be allowed to visit London. Rinaldo was performed there the next year to great success. Again in London on leave in 1712, he settled there, never returning to his post in Hanover.

Between 1712 and 1715 Handel staged four operas, and in 1713 wrote a Te Deum and Jubilate to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht, receiving a life pension of £200 from Queen Anne. On her death in 1714 the Elector of Hanover succeeded to the throne as George I, and apparently forgave his former Kapellmeister's truancy and doubled his pension. In about 1717 Handel composed the Water Music, to accompany George I on his journey down the River Thames. As music director to the Earl of Carnarvon (later Duke of Chandos) in 1717-20, he wrote the Chandos Anthems (1717-18), Acis and Galatea (1718), and the masque Haman and Mordecai (1720). From 1720 he directed the opera at the King's Theatre, Haymarket.

The founding of the Royal Academy of Music in 1720 began Handel's most prolific period as an opera composer, and over the next 20 years he wrote more than 30 works. Opera in Italian met with limited success (Dr Johnson called it ‘an exotic and irrational entertainment’), and it was only in recent years that the beauties of Giulio Cesare (1724), Orlando (1733), Ariodante (1735), and Alcina (1735) have been appreciated. The rivalry of the fashionable Italian composer Giovanni Bononcini, and John Gay's ridicule in The Beggar's Opera (1728), led him to abandon Italian opera for English oratorio.

Handel ran into difficulties with some of the people around him and also Bononcini. This was made worse by quarrels between his two leading ladies, Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. The popular success of Gay's The Beggar's Opera made matters worse, and in that year the Royal Academy of Music went bankrupt. Handel continued to produce operas, acting as his own impresario in partnership with Johann Jakob Heidegger (1666-1749), a Swiss impresario active in London, but rival factions, now of a political nature, again spoiled his success, and in the 1730s he increasingly turned to oratorio. Esther (1732), a revision of the masque Haman and Mordecai, was followed by Deborah (1733), Saul (1739), and Israel in Egypt (1739).

Handel's last opera was produced in 1741, after which he devoted his time chiefly to oratorio. Messiah summed up his life's work. It was composed in a matter of weeks but included some elements from earlier music. Its success encouraged him to write 12 more oratorios, some on Old Testament texts (Samson, 1743; Solomon, 1749), others on classical mythology (Semele, 1743). He continued to appear in public as a conductor and organist, playing concertos between the parts of his oratorios, but his health declined. In 1751, despite receiving treatment for cataracts, he became totally blind. His last major public success came in 1749 with the suite for wind instruments, to accompany the Royal Fireworks in Green Park.

Works Opera Agrippina (1709), Rinaldo (1711), Radamisto (1720), Giulio Cesare (1724), Tamerlano (1724), Rodelinda (1725), Scipione (1726), Alessandro (1726), Orlando (1733), Ariodante (1735), Alcina (1735), Serse (1735), Giustino, Berenice (1737), Imeneo (1740), Deidamia (1741).

Oratorio Athalia (1733), Saul (1739), Israel in Egypt (1739), Messiah (1742), Samson (1743), Belshazzar (1745), Judas Maccabaeus (1747), Joshua (1747), Susanna (1749), Solomon (1749), Theodora (1750), Jephtha (1752).

Other choral works Acis and Galatea (1718), Alexander's Feast (1736), Ode for St Cecilia's Day (1739), L'allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (after John Milton; 1740), Semele (1743); 11 Chandos Anthems (1717-18); anthems for the coronation of George II in 1727: Let Thy Hand be Strengthened, My Heart is Inditing, The King shall Rejoice, and Zadok the Priest; dramatic cantatas: Apollo e Dafne (1708) and Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (1708); numerous other solo and duo cantatas, including Armida abandonata (1707), Silete venti (1729); Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate.

Instrumental trio sonatas and other pieces, 12 concerti grossi for strings, oboe concertos, organ concertos, Water Music (1717), Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749), and other pieces; keyboard music, including organ fugues and harpsichord suites.