| |
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
George Frideric Handel
|
|
|
(1685–1759)
German-born composer who was by far the most distinguished musician in 18C Britain; he lived here from soon after 1710 and was naturalized in 1727. His early years in London were spent composing and directing Italian opera (he had a considerable success in 1711 with Rinaldo), but in general English audiences were suspicious of this elaborate foreign fare. Handel met their needs with a new form, the English oratorio, using biblical subjects, dramatic in content but designed for concert performance and sung in English. The best known of them all is *Messiah. Some were written to catch the national mood on specific occasions, such as the triumphalist Judas Maccabaeus (1747) which greeted Butcher *Cumberland on his return to London.
|
|
|
|
|
Handel had long been closely connected with royal occasions. His Water Music may have been written to accompany a boating party given on the Thames by George I in 1717; for the coronation of George II in 1727 he composed four anthems, of which Zadok the Priest has been performed at every *coronation since; and the Music for the Royal Fireworks was played in 1749 in London's Green Park during the festivities for the end of the War of the *Austrian Succession (it had previously had a public rehearsal in *Vauxhall Gardens). Handel was buried in Westminster Abbey, with a monument by *Roubiliac in Poets' Corner.
|
|
|
|