George Frideric Handel (1685-1759); DEU/ENG

Just as the classical masters Mozart and Haydn are often paired together, so too are the masters of the high baroque, Bach and Handel. And yet it is the differences that are at least as illuminating as are the points of comparison. Both composers were complete masters of the prevailing Italian and French styles that comprised the basic language of the Baroque. But whereas Bach effected a personal synthesis of the two styles with German counterpoint, Handel showed a strong early proclivity toward the extroverted and dramatic world of Italian opera, and ultimately became the most important composer of an essentially Italian style, albeit with a French grandeur.

Although he was certainly a virtuoso contrapuntalist, counterpoint was often for Handel a dramatic means, and not an end unto itself as it was for the more introverted Bach, composer of the Well Tempered Clavier and the Art of the Fugue. (Perhaps this is partly why Handel was a greater inspiration to Beethoven than was Bach.) Bach had no interest in opera but wrote instead profoundly religious cantatas, passions and masses, while treating the voice essentially as a melodic instrument with the most intricate demands of counterpoint expected of it. With Handel on the other hand, even religious oratorios such as the Messiah, have a theatrical quality that is not exclusively of the church and that communicates to an already burgeoning middle class audience. Handel's writing for the voice is completely idiomatic and the freer contrapuntal textures are more vocally conceived and are contrasted with powerful chordal writing. Finally, Bach, who never traveled outside of Germany, was not truly valued by the larger world until 75 years after his death, while Handel, the cosmopolitan composer and impresario, was internationally famous in his own lifetime.

Unlike Bach, George Frideric Handel was not born into a musical family, but his gifts were so obvious that his barber-surgeon father begrudgingly allowed him to take lessons from the director of music at the principal church in Handel's native town of Halle, in Saxony. Handel became an accomplished organist, harpsichordist, and studied violin and oboe. His knowledge of counterpoint and contemporary composition came from the time honored method of copying scores of other composers. At the age of 18, rather than become a church cantor, Handel went to Hamburg, the center of German opera, where he stayed until 1706. Here he composed his first opera, "Amira," performed in 1705.

From 1706 to 1710, Handel was in Italy, where he had contact with the major musicians in Rome, Florence, Venice, and Naples. He was recognized as an emerging talent and met among others, Corelli, Allesandro Scarlatti and his son Domenico, who was exactly Handel's age. By the time Handel left Italy at the age of 25 to become Music Director at the Court of Hanover, the basic foundation of his style had been developed.

Handel took an almost immediate leave from his new position and went to London where his opera "Rinaldo" caused a sensation. In 1712, he was granted a second leave on condition that he return "within a reasonable time." Two years later he was still in London when the Elector of Hanover was proclaimed King George I of England. Legend has it that the truant Handel restored himself to the good favor of the new monarch by composing wind music to be played as a surprise for the King's boating party. This music was published in 1740 under the title "Water Music." Meanwhile, Handel settled down to a long and prosperous career in London where Italianate music had always found favor, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1726.

Around this time, sixty noble and wealthy men formed a joint stock company called the Royal Academy of Music to present the fashionable Italian operas to the public. Handel and two Italians, Bonosini and Ariosti, were engaged as composers. This company flourished from 1720 to 1728 and for it Handel produced some of his finest operas, including "Giulio Cesare" in 1724. However by 1728, with the success of Gay's "The Beggars Opera" in English, it was clear that the public was growing tired of Italian opera. When the company dissolved, Handel took over the theater with a partner and became an entrepreneur, traveling to Italy and dealing with increasingly highly paid and temperamental singers as well as composing. In the 1730's however, Handel realized that his style of opera could no longer be financially successful and he turned to a kind of composition that could be mounted at less expense, namely the English oratorio (Overture from "Julius Caeser in Egypt;" Arrival of the Queen of Sheba from "Solomon"), which can be said to be Handel's most original contribution to music.

Handel had already set English words in sections of some operas and most notably in "Alexander's Feast" in 1736. After suffering a stroke in 1737 caused by the strains of running an opera company, two works, "Saul" and "Israel in Egypt" established the popularity of the Handelian oratorio on biblical subjects in 1739. Handel at this time leased a theater for annual performances of Lenten oratorios and even improvised on the organ at intermissions. These performances completely won over the English public and made Handel's music supreme in England until Edward Elgar came to maturity in the late nineteenth century. All in all, Handel produced 26 oratorios, the most famous of course being the "Messiah," which was first performed in Dublin in 1742.

Although Handel was known to be imperious at times, and to have a huge temper as well as an enormous appetite, he was also known for his sense of humor and generous, honorable and pious nature. In his last seven years of life, Handel was blind and yet continued to conduct and revise his works with the help of his devoted friend, J.S Schmidt. By the time he died in London in 1759, he had become an English institution.

Although Handel's greatest music and innovations were in the field of vocal music, he composed superb intrumental music throughout his life. There include two groups of Concerti Grossi, Op.3 (1734) and Op.6 (1740) (Polonaise from Concerto Grosso No.3 in E-, Op.6), and five Concerti for orchestra (1741), as well as twelve organ concerti (Allegro from No.7 in F "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale;" No.6 in Bb). Eight "Suites de Pièces" for harpsichord published in 1733 contain much famous music, including the variations on a theme known as the "Harmonious Blacksmith" and the well-known Sarabande in D-. The fifteen solo sonatas of Op.1 (No.5 in F, Op.1 No.11; No.6 in B-, Op.1 No.9) published in 1724 are playable on a variety of instruments, such as the flute, oboe, and violin. In addition, there are many other duets, solo, and trio sonatas as well as the "Music for Royal Fireworks" (La Réjouissance; Minuet I & II) of 1749.

Handel, along with Bach, is one of the supreme glories of his age for many reasons, not the least of which is the sincerity and clarity of his emotional meaning. While Bach's profund religiosity is the result of a restless and questioning introspection, the more worldy Handel seems to be less troubled and more accepting, but no less believing in the givens of his faith. Handel and Bach stand above their contemporaries for the power and surety of their music. The underlying harmonic architecture, which is one of the great contributions of the Baroque, achieves an unprecedented richness and solidity with both composers. As with much of the greatest art, the music is often surprising, yet inevitable.

Biography by Allen Krantz. Copyright © Classical Archives, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Handel, George Frideric [Händel, Georg Friedrich] (b Halle, 1685; d London, 1759). Ger.-born composer and organist (Eng. cit. 1726). Son of a barber-surgeon who opposed mus. as his son's career though he permitted lessons from Zachau, composer and org. of Liebfrauenkirche, Halle. Handel studied law at Halle Univ., turning to full-time mus. when his father died. He went to Hamburg in 1703 where he joined the opera house under the composer Reinhard Keiser, playing 2nd vn. in the orch. His first opera Almira, written because Keiser lost interest in the lib., which Handel took over, was prod. there in 1705, being followed by 3 others. In 1706 Handel went to Italy in a prince's retinue, meeting Corelli, the Scarlattis, and other leading figures, and rapidly attaining mastery of It. style in opera, chamber mus., and vocal mus. He was acclaimed as a genius, the rival of his It. contemporaries. His opera Rodrigo was perf. in Florence in 1707 and Agrippina in Venice in 1709. The following year he was appointed court cond. in Hanover and was also invited to write an opera (Rinaldo) for London, where he quickly realized the possibilities for his own success and, after settling his affairs in Hanover, settled there permanently.

For the next 35 years Handel was immersed in the ups and downs of operatic activity in London where the It. opera seria was the dominant force. In 1712 he received a pension of £200 a year for life from Queen Anne, this being increased to £600 by King George I, his former ruler in Hanover, for whom in 1717 he comp. the famous Water Music suite. From 1717 to 1720 Handel was resident comp. to the Earl of Carnarvon (Duke of Chandos from April 1719) at his palace of Cannons in Edgware. The 11 Chandos Anthems were the chief fruit of this appointment. In 1719 Handel, in assoc. with G. Bononcini and Ariosti, was a mus. dir. of the so-called Royal Acad. of Mus. (not a coll. but a business venture to produce It. opera). Handel travelled abroad to engage singers and in the 8 years until the acad. closed because of lack of support he comp. 14 operas, among them Radamisto, Rodelinda, Admeto, and Tolomeo. In 1727, for the coronation of George II, Handel wrote 4 anthems, incl. Zadok the Priest, which has been sung at every Brit. coronation since then.

The success of Gay's The Beggar's Opera and imitative works was the prin. cause of the falling-away of support for Handel's co. He went to It. to hear operas by composers such as Porpora and Pergolesi and to engage the leading It. singers. Back in London in partnership with Heidegger at the King's Theatre, Handel wrote Lotario (1729), Partenope (1730), and Orlando (1733). In 1734 he moved to the new CG Th., for which he wrote two of his greatest operas, Ariodante (prod. Jan. 1735) and Alcina (prod. Ap. 1735), but he recognized that the popularity of It. opera was declining and began, somewhat unwillingly, to develop the genre of dramatic oratorios which is perhaps his most orig. contribution to the art of mus. Esther (1732 in rev. form) and Acis and Galatea are typical examples. Ironically, released from the conventions of opera seria, Handel's dramatic gifts found wider and more expressive outlets in the oratorio form. Scores contain stage directions and the use of ch. and orch. became more dramatic and rich. He cond. several oratorio perf. in London, 1735, playing his own org. concs. as entr'actes. Nevertheless he continued to write operas and between 1737 and 1740 comp. Berenice, Serse, Imeneo, and Deidamia.

In 1737 Handel's health cracked under the strain of his operatic labours and he had a stroke. Following his recovery, he wrote a series of oratorios, incl. Messiah, prod. Dublin, 1742. By this work his name is known throughout the world, yet it is something of an oddity in Handel's work since he was not a religious composer in the accepted sense. But its power, lyricism, sincerity, and profundity make it one of the supreme mus. creations as well as an outstanding example of devotional art. It was followed by Samson, Judas Maccabaeus, and Solomon. The success of these works made Handel the idol of the Eng., and that popularity dominated Eng. mus. for nearly 150 years after his death. Not until Handel's operas were revived in Ger. in the 1920s was the perspective corrected and the importance of that branch of his art restored. Superb as are Handel's instr. comps. such as the concerti grossi, sonatas, and suites, it is in the operas and oratorios that the nobility, expressiveness, invention, and captivation of his art are found at their highest degree of development. He did not revolutionize operatic form but he brought the novelty of his genius to the genre as he found it. The scene-painting and illustrative qualities of his orchestration are remarkable even at a period when naive and realistic effects were common currency.

For the last 7 years of his life Handel was blind, but he continued to conduct oratorio perfs. and to revise his scores with assistance from his devoted friend John Christopher Smith. His works were pubd. by the Ger. Handel Gesellschaft in a complete edn. (1859-94) of 100 vols., ed. Chrysander, and a new edn., the Hallische Handel-Ausgabe, is in progress. Prin. comps.:

OPERAS: Hamburg: Almira, Nero (lost) (both 1705), Florindo e Dafne (lost) (1707); Florence: Rodrigo (1707); Venice: Agrippina (1709); London: Rinaldo (1711, rev. 1731), Il pastor fido (1712; 2nd version with ballet Terpsicore, 1734); Teseo (1712); Silla (1714); Amadigi di Gaula (1715); Radamisto (1720, rev. 1720, 1721, 1728); Muzio Scevola, Floridante (both 1721); Ottone (1722); Flavio (1723); Giulio Cesare in Egitto (1723-4); Tamerlano (1724, rev. 1731); Rodelinda, regina de'Longobardi (1725); Scipione, Alessandro (both 1726); Admeto, Riccardo I (both 1727); Siroe, Tolomeo (both 1728); Lotario (1729); Partenope (1729-30, rev. 1730, 1736); Poro (1731); Ezio, Sosarme (both 1732); Orlando (1733); Arianna (1734); Ariodante, Alcina (both 1735); Atalanta (1736); Arminio, Giustino, Berenice (all 1737); Faramondo, Serse (both 1738); Imeneo (1738-40); Deidamia (1740).

ORCH.: Water Music (c.1717); Music for Royal Fireworks (1749).

DRAMATIC ORATORIOS: Rome: La Resurrezione, Trionfo del Tempo (1708); Naples: Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (1709); Hamburg: Der für die Sünde der Welt gemartete und sterbende Jesus (Brockes Passion) (?1716); London: Haman and Mordecai (masque 1720, later rev. as Esther in 1732); Acis and Galatea (1718; rev. 1732 incorporating part of 1708 cantata on same subject, and 1743); Deborah (1733); Athalia (1733); Alexander's Feast (1736); Israel in Egypt (1738); Saul, Ode for St Cecilia's Day (1739); L'Allegro, il Pensieroso ed il Moderato (1740); Messiah (1741); Samson (1741-2); Joseph and his Brethren, Semele (1743); Belshazzar, Hercules (1744); Occasional Oratorio, Judas Maccabaeus (1746); Alexander Balus, Joshua (1747); Solomon, Susanna (1748); Theodora, Alceste (1749); Choice of Hercules (1750); Jephtha (1751); Triumph of Time and Truth (1757).

CANTATAS AND CHAMBER DUETS: Handel comp. 100 of the former and 20 of the latter. Among the best known are Silete Venti, sop., instr. (1729); La terra è liberata (Apollo e Dafne), sop., bass, instr. (c.1708); and O numi eterni (La Lucrezia), sop., continuo (1709).

CHURCH MUSIC: Gloria Patri (1707); Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate (1712-13); Dettingen Te Deum (1743); 11 Chandos Anthems (1717-18); 4 Coronation Anthems (1727: The King Shall Rejoice; Let thy hand be strengthened; My heart is inditing; Zadok the Priest); The Ways of Zion do Mourn, funeral anthem for Queen Caroline (1737).

VOCAL: Birthday Ode for Queen Anne (1713); 9 German Arias (1729).

INSTRUMENTAL AND CHAMBER MUSIC: 6 Concerti Grossi, str., ww., continuo, Op.3 (1734); 12 Concerti Grossi, str., optional wind, Op.6 (1739); 5 Concerti, orch. (1741); 6 organ concerti, Op.4 (1738); 6 organ concerti, Op.7 (1760); 6 organ concerti (1740); 15 chamber sonatas (fls., recorders), Op.1 (1724); 3 concerti a due cori; 2 ob. sonatas; 12 fl. sonatas; 6 trio sonatas; 9 trio sonatas, Op.2 (1722-33); 7 trio sonatas, Op.5 (1739); va. da gamba sonata; 8 suites de pièces, hpd. (1720); 8 suites de pièces (1733, these incl. the well-known Chaconne in G); 6 Fugues (1736). See also Harmonious Blacksmith.

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