George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel—the most successful composer of the early 18th century, lauded by Beethoven in 1823 as “the greatest that ever lived”—remains a favorite today through the popularity of pieces such as Messiah, the Water Music, and many others. Unlike the other great German composer born in 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach, who pursued his career in the towns and courts of north Germany, Handel’s motivation from an early stage was to compose in the Italian manner, particularly in opera. This ambition took him from Halle, the town of his birth, to work first for the opera house in Hamburg (1704–06) and then in Italy (1707–10).

Early Years 

In Italy, regarded as “the land of Musick” where the best music was believed to originate, Handel served patrons in Rome, Florence, and Venice, composing many cantatas, some Roman Catholic church music, his first oratorios, and two new operas—all of a quality to rival the best that Italian composers were producing. The oratorio La resurrezione (1708) and the opera Agrippina (1709) proved how adept he was becoming, especially with dramas, at changing musical fashion rather than following it. That ability would remain the key to his success throughout his career.

Handel: Armida abbandonata for Soprano, Two Violins, and Continuo, HWV 105

From Hanover to London

The high reputation that Handel gained in Italy ensured that he would be sought after for a prestigious post. In 1710 he was appointed Kapellmeister to the court of the Electorate of Hanover, whose ruler was the heir presumptive to the British crown. By late 1710 he was living in London, perhaps as part of the diplomatic activity of preparing for the Hanoverian succession, and probably with the intention of composing for the Queen’s Theatre that in 1705 had begun staging Italian operas. His Rinaldo (1711) was the first opera designed for the theater’s Italian company, and others followed in 1712–15. By 1713 Handel was also serving the English court, accepting commissions to compose that year’s Birthday Ode for Queen Anne and settings of the Te Deum and Jubilate to celebrate the Treaty of Utrecht. After the Elector of Hanover succeeded Queen Anne in 1714 as George I, Handel continued to serve the monarch and other aristocratic patrons too while collaborating with the theater. It was for the king’s entertainment on the river Thames that, in 1717, Handel provided the Water Music: French-style dances of the type in vogue at German courts. Another important milestone that shows his mastery of the full range of contemporary French, Italian, and German styles is the collection of eight harpsichord suites published in 1720. They include the Sarabande in D minor popularized in Stanley Kubrick’s movie Barry Lyndon (1975).

Handel: “Eternal source of light divine” (Birthday Ode for Queen Anne)

Leading the heyday of Italian opera 

In 1719 a consortium of aristocrats, with the support of King George, established a company called The Royal Academy of Music to manage opera seria (Italian “serious” operas) in London in emulation of opera houses in Venice and elsewhere. Handel was engaged as one of its composers and at various times visited the Continent to recruit the best singers available. The company, never fully profitable because of the inordinately high salaries commanded by the star singers, ended in financial collapse by late 1728, but much of the success it did enjoy may be attributed to Handel, who provided a succession of excellent operas (one of the best is Giulio Cesare in Egitto of 1724) featuring the castrato Senesino, the prima donna Cuzzoni, and, from 1726, the rivalry that became scandalous between Cuzzoni and another leading soprano, Faustina. From 1729 onwards Handel mounted further operas with a new company formed in partnership with the theater manager J. J. Heidegger.

Handel: "Vivi, tiranno!" from Rodelinda for Voice, Two Oboes, Strings, and Continuo

Handel’s acumen in the precarious theater business since the 1710s had made him financially independent and no longer reliant on aristocratic patrons. In 1716 he was able to invest in the South Sea Company and, in 1723, to lease a new house in Mayfair. His thoroughly Continental music had come to dominate artistic trends in London, which was fast becoming the wealthiest city in Europe, the hub of a growing empire. His petition to Parliament to become a naturalized British citizen was granted in 1727, a few months before he provided the four anthems for the coronation of George II and his consort, Queen Caroline.

Middle Period: The crises of the 1730s and new directions

London’s fashion for opera in a foreign language inevitably dwindled, weakened by its artificiality and absurd economics. From 1733 to 1737 a rival company (the Opera of the Nobility), which imported the famous Farinelli, reduced audience support for Handel’s productions. Despite financial losses and a serious bout of illness in 1737, he persisted with opera until 1741, but meanwhile experimented with new modes of concert-giving, through which he reinvented his leading status in London’s artistic scene. By setting lengthy English-language texts for performance in theaters and preferring English virtuoso singers and choral forces too, he created a new kind of evening entertainment for the burgeoning middle class. They include odes (e.g., Alexander’s Feast, 1736), English comic opera (Semele, 1744), and numerous oratorios, such as Saul (1738), based on epic biblical stories. Many are actual dramas with principal characters. In others the drama is far less tangible, as in L’allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (1740, poetry mostly by Milton), yet Handel’s method remained consistent, employing music to transport listeners through a range of emotions while thrilling them with solo and corporate virtuosity. Messiah (1742)—controversial because it quotes Scripture verbatim and remains perennially misunderstood—is a product of that same approach: an unstaged drama that powerfully delivers the Christian message by overtly theatrical means.

Late Period: Music for a grateful nation

The success of L’allegro, Messiah, and Saul, when presented multiple times during Handel’s seven-month residency in 1741–2 in Dublin (then Britain’s second city), must have convinced him that he had found the ideal substitute for opera. His theater seasons in London during the 1740s sometimes failed—in 1745 Belshazzar, a true masterpiece, closed after only three nights—and faced competition from Thomas Arne and others. But gradually they became well supported, especially when the militaristic themes of several works, notably Judas Maccabaeus, reflected the national mood with the defeat of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745–6. Thus, in his late years, Handel’s art with English words became a key component of British culture at a time of growing naval power and victories abroad. The Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749)–celebrating the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle—and the oratorios’ monumental choruses of praise and triumph had become the sound of Britannia.

Handel: "Let the Bright Seraphim" from Samson for Soprano, Trumpet, Strings, and Continuo, HWV 57

Watching and Listening

Handel’s music is more widely accessible than ever before, judging by the huge number of recordings available online, including videos on YouTube of live performances of almost all his compositions. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Digital Archive offers some interesting cases—for instance Handel’s last chamber work, the superb Violin Sonata in D major, HWV 371, of c. 1750. His trio sonatas published in the 1730s mostly comprise music written in earlier years: this is true of both HWV 396, Op. 5 No. 1, for flute, violin, and continuo (1739), and HWV 386a, the original version of Op. 2 No. 1, for oboe, violin, and continuo (1733). Handel’s repertory of concertos designed as added-value entertainments during his concerts of large vocal works is represented by the Harp Concerto in B-flat major, HWV 294, Op. 4 No. 6, first performed in 1736 with Alexander’s Feast, and the Concerto Grosso in D major, HWV 323, Op. 6 No. 5, composed in 1739. This, like the remaining 11 “grand concertos” published as Op. 6, is flamboyant music-making, full of theatrical gestures of a kind to delight the crowd in a concert hall or at London’s pleasure gardens at Vauxhall. Handel’s gift for creating arias of immense sensitivity and emotional depth is clear from the selections of vocal music: from his Italian cantatas (Armida abbandonate and Il delirio amoroso of 1707); his London operas over three decades (Amadigi di Gaula, 1715, Rodelinda, 1725, Arminio, 1737); and his brilliant English-language works of the 1740s (L’allegro, 1740, and Samson, 1743). However, perhaps no other piece can eclipse the glittering opening movement of one of Handel’s first settings of English, “Eternal source of light divine” (Birthday Ode for Queen Anne, 1713), fashioned as a metaphysical sunrise of breathtaking beauty.

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