Georg Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Saxony, in February 1685, the son of a barber-surgeon who initially opposed his musical training. He studied with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow at the Halle parish church, then enrolled briefly at Halle University before leaving for Hamburg in 1703, where he played violin and harpsichord in the opera orchestra and composed his first opera, *Almira*. A four-year period in Italy from 1706 brought him into contact with the leading composers and patrons of the Italian operatic scene and produced the *Dixit Dominus* and his first Italian operas.

Handel settled in London in 1712, becoming a British subject in 1727, and lived there for the remaining forty-seven years of his life. His Italian opera ventures across the 1720s and 1730s — with the Royal Academy of Music and later as an independent impresario — produced *Rinaldo*, *Giulio Cesare*, *Rodelinda*, *Alcina* and over thirty other works. When the operatic market failed in the 1730s he turned increasingly to English oratorio, producing *Messiah* (1741), *Samson*, *Belshazzar*, *Judas Maccabaeus*, *Solomon* and *Jephtha*. The *Water Music* (1717) and *Music for the Royal Fireworks* (1749) marked the principal ceremonial occasions of his London career.

Handel went blind in his final years and died in London in April 1759. He was buried in Westminster Abbey with state honours. Music Preserved’s archive includes a substantial range of his operatic and oratorio work in twentieth-century British performance.