George Frideric HandelHandel (disambiguation)

George Frideric Handel

Portrait of Handel, by Balthasar Denner(c.17261728)

Born

Georg Friedrich Hndel

23 February 1685 (O.S.)
Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg,Holy Roman
Empire

Died

14 April 1759 (aged 74)

London, England

Notable

List of compositions

work
Signature
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (/hndl/;[1] born Georg Friedrich Hndel,[2] German
pronunciation: [hndl]; 23 February 1685 (O.S.)[(N.S.) 5 March] 14 April 1759)[3] was a German-born,
British Baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for
his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Born in a family indifferent to music, Handel
received critical training in Halle, Hamburg and Italy before settling in London (1712), and became a
naturalized British subject in 1727.[4] He was strongly influenced both by the great composers of
the Italian Baroque and the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.
Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English
nobility with Italian opera. Musicologist Winton Dean writes that his operas show that "Handel was
not only a great composer; he was a dramatic genius of the first order."[5] As Alexander's
Feast (1736) was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works. After his success
with Messiah (1742) he never performed an Italian opera again. Almost blind, and having lived in
England for nearly fifty years, he died in 1759, a respected and rich man. His funeral was given full
state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Born the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti, Handel is regarded as one
of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, with works such as Water Music, Music for the Royal
Fireworks and Messiah remaining steadfastly popular.[6] One of his four Coronation Anthems, Zadok
the Priest (1727), composed for the coronation of George II of Great Britain, has been performed at
every subsequent British coronation, traditionally during the sovereign's anointing. Handel composed
more than forty operas in over thirty years, and since the late 1960s, with the revival of baroque
music and historically informed musical performance, interest in Handel's operas has grown.

Early years[edit]

Handel was born in 1685 in Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg, to Georg Hndel and Dorothea Taust.[7] His
father, 63 when George Frideric was born, was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court
of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg.[8] According to Handel's first
biographer,John Mainwaring, he "had discovered such a strong propensity to Music, that his father
who always intended him for the study of the Civil Law, had reason to be alarmed. He strictly forbade
him to meddle with any musical instrument but Handel found means to get a little clavichord privately
convey'd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was
asleep".[9] At an early age Handel became a skilful performer on the harpsichord and pipe organ. [10]
Hndel-Haus (2009) birthplace of George Frideric Handel

Entrance of Teatro del Cocomero in Florence

Handel and his father travelled to Weissenfels to visit either Handel's half-brother, Carl, or nephew,
Georg Christian,[11] who was serving as valet to Duke Johann Adolf I.[12] On this trip, young Handel
was lifted onto an organ's stool, where he surprised everyone with his playing. [13] This performance
helped Handel and the duke to convince his father to allow him to take lessons in musical
composition and keyboard technique fromFriedrich Wilhelm Zachow, the organist of
Halle's Marienkirche.[13] Zachow composed music for the Lutheran services at the church, and from
him Handel learned about harmony and counterpoint, copying and analysing scores, and gained
instruction on the oboe, violin, harpsichord and organ.[13]In 1698 Handel played for Frederick I of
Prussia and met Giovanni Bononcini in Berlin.

Major works

George Frideric Handel (23 February 1685 14 April 1759) was a German
English Baroque composer who is famous for his operas, oratorios and concerti grossi.
Handel's 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. His oratorio Messiah,
with its "Hallelujah" chorus, is among the most famous Baroque works and is a popular
choice for performances during the Christmas season. Among Handel's best-known
instrumental works are the Concerti Grossi Opus 3 and 6; "The Cuckoo and the
Nightingale", in which birds are heard calling during passages played in different keys
representing the vocal ranges of two birds; and his 16 keyboard suites, especially The
Harmonious Blacksmith.
Collected editions of Handel's works include the Hndel-Gesellschaft (HG) and
the Hallische Hndel-Ausgabe (HHA), however the more recent Hndel-WerkeVerzeichnis (HWV) publication is now commonly used to number his works. For
example, Handel's Messiah can be referred to as: HG xlv, HHA i/17, or HWV 56. [1] Some
of Handel's music is also numbered based on initial publications, for example a 1741
publication by Walsh labelled twelve of Handel's concerti grossi as Opus 6.

HW

Titl

Almira

Premiere

8 January
1705

Venue

Libretto

Theater am

Friedrich Christian

Gnsemarkt,

Feustking, after G.

Hamburg

Pancieri

Notes

Singspiel

HW

Titl

Premiere

25 February

Nero

1705

Venue

Theater am
Gnsemarkt,
Hamburg

Libretto

Notes

Friedrich Christian

Music

Feustking

lost

Almira, HWV 1 (Handel, George Frideric)

Add File

Movements/Sections 3 acts
Composition Year 1705
Genre Categories Operas; Theatrical Works; F
voices, orchestra

Mga nilalaman
[itago]

1 Performances
1.1 Recordings

2 Sheet Music
o

2.1 Full Scores

2.2 Parts
2.2.1 Aria:

Vedrai s'a tuo dispetto (Act

III, sc.8)
2.3 Arrangements and

Transcriptions
2.3.1 Selections

2.3.1.1

For Piano Solo (Liszt)

3 General Information

HWV

Title

Libretto

Premire

Premire place,

Modern

date

theatre

revival

Notes

Almira (Der

Friedrich

8 January

Hamburg,Theater

4 June

Some mus

in Krohnen

Christian

1705

am Gnsemarkt

1994, Handel

lost;

erlangte

Feustking,

Festival,Bad

announced

Glcks-

after Giulio

Lauchstdt

aSingspiel

Wechsel,

Pancieri

has no spo

Movements/Sections 3 acts
Composition Year 1705
Genre Categories Operas; Theatrical Works; F
voices, orchestra

Mga nilalaman
[itago]

1 Performances
1.1 Recordings

2 Sheet Music
o

2.1 Full Scores

2.2 Parts
2.2.1 Aria:

Vedrai s'a tuo dispetto (Act

III, sc.8)
2.3 Arrangements and

Transcriptions
2.3.1 Selections

2.3.1.1

For Piano Solo (Liszt)

3 General Information

oder:
Alimira,

dialogue

Knigin von
Castilien)

Nero (Die
2

durch Blut

Friedrich

und Mord

Christian

erlangete

Feustking

25 February Hamburg, Theater

1705

am Gnsemarkt

Liebe)
George Frideric Handel's operas comprise 42 musical dramas that were written
between 1705 and 1741 in various genres. He began
composing operas in Germany and then for a brief time in Italy to modest success. It
wasn't until he came to England that he truly found great success in the genre. His first
opera in England, Rinaldo (1711), was met with enthusiasm, and several more Italian
operas soon followed. However, Handel's place as the central figure of opera in England
during the eighteenth century was not solidified until, under the influence of Thomas
Arne, he began composing large-scale works with English language texts. Though
almost all of his English language works are technically oratorios and not operas,

Music lost

several of them, such as Semele (1743), have become an important part of the opera
repertoire. Handel's first opera (opera seria- serious Italian opera) was Almira
During the 36 years in which Italian opera was his principal concern, Handel adhered
closely to the typical form of the era, determined by the precedence given to
solo singing and to stage presentation in which set changes were made in front of the
audience and the curtain not lowered until the work's conclusion. Recitatives preceded
solo arias, usually in da capo form (though frequently with an abridged return to the
chief section), dominate the operas, and scenes are normally devised to start with
several characters on stage, each of whom sings an aria and then exits. The last scene
typically concludes with a coro sung by the soloists; ensembles are otherwise atypical
and mainly limited to scenes of communal celebration; only "Dallorror" in Act 3
of Alcina (1735) reaches the depth of the choruses in the English choral works.
Handels operas therefore seem to be highly similar to those of his contemporaries;
what makes them unique is the brilliance of the music which skillfully conveys with
instant fervor the emotional states of the characters within the context of the drama.
Contents
[hide]

1 Overview

2 List of works

3 See also

4 References

5 External links

Overview[edit]

First edition of Handel'sGiulio Cesare (1724)

Handel's earlier operas tended to be of a lighter nature, although there are intermittent
moments, such as the prison scene from Almira (1705), which are highly dramatic.
Handel's music for his first operas in England was often derived from musical ideas and
idioms found in his cantatas and other works written during his time spent

in Italy (170609). For example, the characteristic harmonic structure

of Agrippina (1709) is obviously a retention of material from this Italian period. In
general, the orchestrations of Handel's earlier operas tended to be richer and smoother
than in his later works, utilizing additional instruments like bassoons to achieve different
tone colours. The music for Rinaldo (1711) notably utilizes four trumpets, an
instrumental choice that Handel never repeated elsewhere.

Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) whose epic poemOrlando Furioso was the source for Handel's
operasOrlando, Alcina, andAriodante.

Beginning with Ottone (1722), Handel composed numerous operas for the Royal
Academy of Music during the 1720s. With the exception of Flavio (1723), the operas
from this period are more serious in tone and the musical expression is more astutely
aligned to the opera's drama than in his earlier operas. Of particular importance from
this period is Giulio Cesare(1724), which contains one of Handel's most expansive and
emotively powerful scores. The sumptuous music and deft characterizations found in
this work has made it one of the more frequently revived Handel operas during the 20th
and 21st centuries. Also of note are Tamerlano (1724) and Rodelinda (1725) which
have particularly striking leading tenor roles that Handel wrote specifically for Francesco
Borosini. The later operas that Handel wrote for the Academy were not as successful as
his earlier ones. The two major sopranos at the Academy, Francesca
Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, were intensely competitive, and Handel had to cater to
them both equally in these latter Academy operas. With the exception of Admeto(1727),
the attempt at balancing two leading soprano roles within an individual opera proved to
hinder the work both musically and dramatically.
During the 1730s, Handel returned to writing operas of a comic and fantastic or heroic
nature, largely because he no longer had to cater to the tastes of the Academy when
choosing librettos. These works, such as Partenope (1730), Orlando (1733)
and Alcina (1735), were influenced by the operas of Leonardo Vinci and Leonardo
Leo and are written in a pre-classical manner. During this period, Handel began to more
frequently utilize the scena in his works, and by the mid-1730s he was writing some of
his most dramatically moving arias, such as the mad scene of Orlando and the end of
Act 2 of Alcina. The size of the orchestras for these works was also larger, with Handel
typically employing 12 violins, 8 violas, 6 cellos, 4 double basses, and
two harpsichords in addition to four bassoons and a number of other wind instruments.
In operas like Oreste (1734), Handel attempted to synthesize Italian opera with French
opera in the sequences of dances and choruses, but made no further experimentation
in this area outside of the operas of 1734 and 1735. Two of the operas from this

period, Ariodante (1735) and Atalanta (1736), were a departure from the traditionally
heroic librettos used by Handel, adopting a more realistic romantic intimacy.
By the late 1730s, Handel's attention was increasingly diverted away from composing
operas and was much more focused on the English oratorio. A number of his operas
from 1737 on lack the brilliance of his earlier works, most likely due to this shift in focus.
Nevertheless, his operas Giustino (1737) and Serse (1738) contain some very fine
music. Serse is also notable for successfully mixing comedy and poignant tragedy into a
masterfully crafted plot, a development repeated less successfully in Imeneo (1740).
Handel's last Italian opera, Deidamia, was produced in 1741 and was not received very
well as England's taste for Italian opera had waned. Handel returned one more time to
theatre music for the semi-opera Alceste in 1750.