George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos.
67 Facts About George Frideric Handel
2.
George Frideric Handel was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque.
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George Frideric Handel is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age.
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George Frideric Handel started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera.
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George Frideric Handel composed more than forty opere serie over a period of more than thirty years.
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Since the late 1960s, interest in George Frideric Handel's music has grown.
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George Frideric Handel was born in 1685 in Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg.
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George Frideric Handel's parents were Georg Handel, aged 63, and Dorothea Taust.
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George Frideric Handel's father was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg.
10.
The arts and music flourished only among the higher strata, of which George Frideric Handel's family was not a member.
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Georg George Frideric Handel was born at the beginning of the war and was apprenticed to a barber in Halle at the age of 14 after his father died.
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George Frideric was the second child of this marriage; the first son was stillborn.
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Whether George Frideric Handel remained there, and if he did for how long, is unknown, but many biographers suggest that he was withdrawn from school by his father, based on the characterization of him by George Frideric Handel's first biographer, John Mainwaring.
14.
Sometime between the ages of seven and nine, Handel accompanied his father to Weissenfels, where he came under the notice of one whom Handel thereafter always regarded throughout life as his benefactor, Duke Johann Adolf I Somehow Handel made his way to the court organ in the palace chapel of the Holy Trinity, where he surprised everyone with his playing.
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George Frideric Handel's father engaged the organist at the Halle parish church, the young Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, to instruct George Frideric Handel.
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When Zachow discovered the talent of George Frideric Handel, he introduced him "to a vast collection of German and Italian music, which he possessed, sacred and profane, vocal and instrumental compositions of different schools, different styles, and of every master".
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George Frideric Handel did this by requiring Handel to copy selected scores.
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Much of this copying was entered into a notebook that George Frideric Handel maintained for the rest of his life.
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Mainwaring writes that during this time Zachow had begun to have George Frideric Handel assume some of his church duties.
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Zachow, Mainwaring asserts, was "often" absent, "from his love of company, and a cheerful glass", and George Frideric Handel, therefore, performed on organ frequently.
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Mainwaring has George Frideric Handel travelling to Berlin the next year, 1698.
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Schoelcher for example has George Frideric Handel travelling to Berlin at 11, meeting both Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti in Berlin and then returning at the direction of his father.
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George Frideric Handel did not enrol in the faculty of law, although he almost certainly attended lectures.
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Around this same time, George Frideric Handel made the acquaintance of Telemann.
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That authentic manuscript sources do not exist and that George Frideric Handel never recycled any material from these works makes their authenticity doubtful.
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Burrows dates this trip to 1702 or 1703 and concluded that since George Frideric Handel turned down Frederick's offer to subsidise his musical education in Italy, George Frideric Handel was no longer able to expect preferment within Brandenburg-Prussia.
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The question remains why George Frideric Handel rejected the King's offer, given that Italy was the centre of opera.
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Lang suggests that influenced by the teachings of Thomasius, George Frideric Handel's character was such that he was unable to make himself subservient to anyone, even a king.
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George Frideric Handel produced two other operas, Daphne and Florindo, in 1708.
30.
George Frideric Handel left for Rome and since opera was banned in the Papal States, composed sacred music for the Roman clergy.
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George Frideric Handel composed cantatas in pastoral style for musical gatherings in the palaces of duchess Aurora Sanseverino one of the most influential patrons from the Kingdom of Naples, and cardinals Pietro Ottoboni, Benedetto Pamphili and Carlo Colonna.
32.
George Frideric Handel visited Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici and her husband in Dusseldorf on his way to London.
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George Frideric Handel went back to Halle twice, to attend the wedding of his sister and the baptism of her daughter, but decided to settle permanently in England in 1712.
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In 1717, George Frideric Handel became house composer at Cannons in Middlesex, where he laid the cornerstone for his future choral compositions in the Chandos Anthems.
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George Frideric Handel himself invested in the South Sea Company in 1716, when its share prices were low and sold them before the "bubble" burst in 1720.
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In 1720, George Frideric Handel invested in the slave-trading Royal African Company, following in the steps of his patron.
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George Frideric Handel travelled to Dresden to attend the newly built opera.
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George Frideric Handel saw Teofane by Antonio Lotti, and engaged members of the cast for the Royal Academy of Music, founded by a group of aristocrats to assure themselves a constant supply of baroque opera or opera seria.
39.
George Frideric Handel's operas are filled with da capo arias, such as Svegliatevi nel core.
40.
In 1728, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, which made fun of the type of Italian opera George Frideric Handel had popularised in London, premiered at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the longest run in theatre history up to that time.
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Between 1711 and 1739, more than 25 of George Frideric Handel's operas premiered there.
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In 1729, George Frideric Handel became joint manager of the theatre with John James Heidegger.
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George Frideric Handel travelled to Italy to engage new singers and composed seven more operas, among them the comic masterpiece Partenope and the "magic" opera Orlando.
44.
George Frideric Handel reworked his Acis and Galatea which then became his most successful work ever.
45.
George Frideric Handel failed to compete with the Opera of the Nobility, who engaged musicians such as Johann Adolph Hasse, Nicolo Porpora and the famous castrato Farinelli.
46.
George Frideric Handel suggested Handel use his small chorus and introduce the dancing of Marie Salle, for whom Handel composed Terpsicore.
47.
On Christmas Eve George Frideric Handel finished the score of Faramondo, but its composition was interrupted by that of the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline.
48.
On Boxing Day he began the composition of Serse, the only comic opera that George Frideric Handel ever wrote and worked with Elisabeth Duparc.
49.
George Frideric Handel composed music for a musical clock with a pipe organ built by Charles Clay; it was bought by Gerrit Braamcamp and was in 2016 acquired by the Museum Speelklok in Utrecht.
50.
George Frideric Handel gave up the opera business, while he enjoyed more success with his English oratorios.
51.
George Frideric Handel became sure of himself, broader in his presentation, and more diverse in his composition.
52.
George Frideric Handel tended more and more to replace Italian soloists with English ones.
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The piece was a great success and it encouraged George Frideric Handel to make the transition from writing Italian operas to English choral works.
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George Frideric Handel secured a balance between soloists and chorus which he never surpassed.
55.
In 1749, George Frideric Handel composed Music for the Royal Fireworks; 12,000 people attended the first performance.
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In recognition of his patronage, George Frideric Handel was made a governor of the Hospital the day after his initial concert.
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George Frideric Handel bequeathed a copy of Messiah to the institution upon his death.
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George Frideric Handel died in 1759 at home in Brook Street, at the age of 74.
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George Frideric Handel owned an art collection that was auctioned posthumously in 1760.
60.
George Frideric Handel's compositions include 42 operas, 25 oratorios, more than 120 cantatas, trios and duets, numerous arias, odes and serenatas, solo and trio sonatas, 18 concerti grossi, and 12 organ concertos.
61.
The first published catalogue of George Frideric Handel's works appeared as an appendix to Mainwaring's Memoirs.
62.
George Frideric Handel's works were collected and preserved by two men: Sir Samuel Hellier, a country squire whose musical acquisitions form the nucleus of the Shaw-Hellier Collection, and the abolitionist Granville Sharp.
63.
The original form of his name, Georg Friedrich George Frideric Handel, is generally used in Germany and elsewhere, but he is known as "Haendel" in France.
64.
George Frideric Handel has generally been accorded high esteem by fellow composers, both in his own time and since.
65.
George Frideric Handel first wrote some variations on the theme, which he titled Variations on Handel's 'The Harmonious Blacksmith'.
66.
In 1942, George Frideric Handel was the subject of the British biographical film The Great Mr George Frideric Handel directed by Norman Walker and starring Wilfrid Lawson.
67.
George Frideric Handel was portrayed by Jeroen Krabbe as the antagonist in the film Farinelli.