George Frideric Handel Research Paper

Thomas Frost
December 10th, 2014
Dr. Rasmussen
Music History I
MUSC-3370
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was born February 23rd, 1685 to a family indifferent to music in Halle, Germany. He spent the majority of his career in London and is best known for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. He opened three commercial opera companies to supply the English with Italian operas and wrote more than forty operas in just over thirty years of his career. His works are said to be so passionate because they are hollowed, not by liturgical dignity but by moral ideals of humanity. To this day, Handel is known as one of the greatest and most influential composers of the baroque period.
His parents were on opposing sides of
the spectrum in regards to Handel’s pursuit of music, especially seeing as how neither of them were musically inclined. His mother nurtured his musical desires and encouraged him to do well. His father on the other hand did he best to prevent his son’s study of the craft. As a result, he studied law at a local university while practicing violin in secrecy. Upon graduation, he moved to Hamburg. There he made ends meet as a back-desk violinist at the opera house and composed his first opera “Almira”. He then moved to Italy in late 1706 and there he began composing church music as well as secular and theatrical works for patrons in Rome, Venice, Naples and Florence. He also encountered several musical minds that would later influence his works such as Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, his son Domenico Scarlatti, Giacomo Perti, Bernardo Pasquini, Francesco Gasparini, and Antonio Caldara.
In early 1710 Handel returned north of the Alps and was appointed Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover but he had left for London by the end of the year, just in time for the premiere of his opera “Rinaldo” in 1711. He settled in Britain in the 1710’s and wrote several operas for the Queens Opera. For a short while he even wrote songs for the Earl of Carnarvon’s Country Estate Cannons. Handel became the musical director of the newly founded Royal Academy of Music in 1709. The Royal Academy of Music was an institution founded upon the grounds of the establishment of Italian opera on English stages. Randamisto, Tamerlano and Rodelinda, and Giulio Cesare in Egitto were some of the more important works written in light of the movement.
The year was 1723 when Handel stumbled upon the home that he’d live in the rest of his life.
It was a house on Brook Street in Mayfair. He composed four anthems for the coronation of George II in October of 1727 just after becoming a naturalized citizen of Britain. In 1732 he revived the first ever, English written oratorio “Esther” sparking a period of musical fusion if you will. He began to mix Italian operas and English-Language concert works together in his theatre sessions for the remainder of the decade. It was during that time that many of his greatest masterworks were composed and debuted. These works include Orlando, Ariodante, Alcina, Alexander's Feast, Saul, the Op. 6 concerti grossi and the Miltonic ode L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. His last Italian operas were performed then as well, “Imenio” and
“Deidamia”. Handel continued to live a dramatic and productive life during the 1740s, writing diverse works such as Biblical dramatic oratorios like “Samson”, “Belshazzar”, “Solomon”, secular music dramas based on Greek classical tragedies such as “Semele” and “Hercules” and patriotic concert works like Judas Maccbaeus.
However, life wasn't easy for him. At numerous times, he was severely criticized by the some voices of the English social establishment for his artistic endeavors, some had considered Italian operas ridiculous, but now others believed that presented Biblical concert dramas or musical settings of scripture was profane. For example, his famous oratorio “Messiah” was enthusiastically received at its premiere in Dublin in 1742, whereas it became the subject of great controversy following its London debut a year later. Furthermore, from summer 1737 he suffered occasional bouts of serious physical illnesses, most likely strokes, although some have speculated that he suffered central nervous system lead poisoning associated with his imbibing of cheap port. During the later years of his life, he experienced progressively debilitating cataracts, and the ensuing operations to restore his vision left him completely blind. Coincidentally, the last English oculist to treat Handel, John Taylor, also unsuccessfully cared for J.S.
Bach. However, despite this adversity, Handel maintained a keen sense of humor and was well known for his charitable disposition. He developed a particularly close relationship with the Foundling Hospital, which hosted annual benefit performances of Messiah. Most importantly, Handel created some of the most enchanting music ever written and left us with his final two masterpieces “Theodora” and “Jephtha”. He died on 14 April 1759 and was buried in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey. Published only a year later, the anecdotal biography by John Mainwaring was the first printed book of any kind devoted to the life and work of a single composer. Although most widely known for “Messiah”, “The Water Music” and a few other popular tunes, in the last few decades audiences and listeners all over the world have become fascinated by the theatrical diversity, insightfulness and charm of the range of the many prolific works of the great Mr. George Frideric Handel.