handel

George Frideric Handel, born February 23, 1685, in Halle, and died April 14, 1759, in London, was a German-born composer who settled in England and became a naturalized British subject. A central figure of the Baroque era, Handel helped popularize the English oratorio and contributed to the development of English opera. After studying organ and theory in his youth, he worked in Hamburg and Italy, absorbing Italian opera and sacred music.

In London from 1710, Handel established the Royal Academy of Music (a company for producing Italian opera) and produced a string of operas including Rinaldo (1711) and Giulio Cesare (1724). By the 1730s, changing tastes and competition led him to focus more on oratorio, a form that used large-scale chorus and accessible English texts. His oratorios, such as Israel in Egypt (1739), Saul (1739), and Messiah (1741), brought him enduring fame. Messiah, with its famed "Hallelujah" chorus, remains his best-known work and is widely performed during the Christmas season and beyond. Handel also composed secular orchestral music, including Water Music (1717), written for a royal fleet on the Thames, and Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749).

Handel’s music fused Italian melodic lines with a strong English choral tradition, characterized by dramatic contrast, lavish orchestration, and memorable motifs. He influenced later composers and helped establish London as a major center for English-language sacred and dramatic music. He died in London in 1759, leaving a substantial catalog of works that continued to shape Western music.