The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. In the 29-volume second edition. Grove Music Online /General Editor – Stanley Sadie. Oxford University Press. 2001.

Handel [Händel, Hendel], George Frideric [Georg Friederich]

(b Halle, 23 Feb 1685; d London, 14 April 1759). English composer of German birth. Though consistently acknowledged as one of the greatest composers of his age, his reputation from his death to the early 20th century rested largely on the knowledge of a small number of orchestral works and oratorios, Messiah in particular. In fact, he contributed to every musical genre current in his time, both vocal and instrumental. The composition of operas, mainly on Italian librettos, dominated the earlier part of his career, and are the finest (though not the most typical) of their kind. In his later years his commitment to large-scale vocal works, usually with a strong dramatic element, found a more individual outlet in English oratorio, a genre that he invented and established.

1. Halle.

2. Hamburg.

3. Italy.

4. Hanover, Düsseldorf and London.

5. Cannons.

6. The Royal Academy of Music.

7. The Second Academy.

8. Opera at Covent Garden.

9. From opera to oratorio.

10. Oratorios and musical dramas.

11. The later oratorios.

12. Last years.

13. Personality.

14. Style and technique.

15. Borrowing.

16. Keyboard music.

17. Instrumental chamber music.

18. Orchestral music.

19. Minor vocal works.

20. Church music.

21. Operas.

22. Oratorio forms.

23. Handel and posterity.

24. Sources and editions.

WORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ANTHONY HICKS

Handel, George Frideric

1. Halle.

He was the son of Georg Händel (1622–97), a barber-surgeon in the service of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, and his second wife Dorothea Taust (1651–1730), daughter of a pastor. Though some documentation of Handel's life in Halle survives, the only substantial account of his early years appears in John Mainwaring's anonymously published Memoirs (1760) which seems to derive its information from Handel himself, perhaps recorded near the end of his life through intermediaries. Though its chronology is unreliable – Mainwaring's dates, when checkable, are usually found to make Handel about four years younger than he actually was – it is probably as accurate as reminiscence allows. The boy's early interest in music was at first frowned upon by his father; he was denied access to musical instruments and encouraged to study for the law. According to Mainwaring, he practised secretly on a clavichord in the attic. The Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, having heard him playing the organ when he was about nine, persuaded his father to give him a musical education under Friedrich Zachow, organist at the Liebfrauenkirche at Halle, who gave him excellent tuition both on organ and harpsichord as well as in composition.

The death of his father on 14 February 1697, when the boy was not quite 12, perhaps removed a source of opposition to musical studies, but as the only surviving son of the marriage Handel also gained new responsibility for the maintenance of his family. He presumably kept open the possibility of a legal career, as is implied by his enrolment at the University of Halle in February 1702. A month later, however, he was appointed organist at the Calvinist Domkirche (Cathedral Church). The appointment was not renewed after the initial probationary year, by which time Handel had almost certainly become clear that he should devote himself to music, and that he needed to seek wider horizons. A taste for opera may first have been stimulated on a visit to Berlin; opera there ‘was in a flourishing condition’ and Handel is said to have met both Giovanni Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti. Such a visit is assigned by Mainwaring to 1698, but probably belongs to 1702, when both Italian composers were producing operas for the Prussian court. The fact that one of Handel's earliest musical works (the trio sonata op.2 no.2) appears to contain borrowings from Bononcini's operas of this period (Cefalo and Polifemo) suggests that the visit did indeed take place and was an important stimulant to the young composer. In summer 1703 Handel left Halle, to return only as an occasional visitor. His new life was to be spent in the great opera centres of Europe, beginning with Hamburg.

Handel, George Frideric