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George Frideric Handel
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George Frideric Handel (1685-1789) was a German-born composer who immigrated to England in 1712. He composed several works in his adopted English tongue, with an excellent mastery of the language. Handel established his career in England writing opera. Italian and Italian-style opera was quite fashionable and even rather popular in mid-18th century England, and Handel accordingly produced several of his own. The Messiah... was composed at a time when he was suffering severe depression. Working quickly, Handel finished the two-and-a-half hour composition in the space of 24 days.
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George Frideric Handel (German Georg Friedrich Händel), (February 23, 1685 – April 14, 1759) was a German-born British Baroque music composer. His best-known work is Messiah, an oratorio set to texts from the King James Bible. It is customarily performed at Christmas time. He was ... deeply influential on many composers after him, including Haydn, mozart, and Beethoven.
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George Frideric Handel began his life in Germany, the son of a barber-surgeon who wanted him to study law. He died an English citizen, the most renowned musical figure of his day and a national treasure. The career that led him there was, in almost every way, a complete contrast to that of his contemporary and fellow countryman, Johann Sebastian Bach (born less then a month after him). Where Bach composed for the church and for his patrons, Handel composed for the general public. Where Bach was primarily of man of God, Handel was a man of the world. And where Bach was a man who never left his native country, Handel was a world traveler.
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Although they never met, George Frideric Handel shares a remarkable common event with Johannes Sebastian Bach beyond the fact that they were born the same year: they had cataract surgery by the same oculist, John Taylor. The procedure was primitive by today's standards, and he eventually became fully blind. But his fate was better than Bach, who died from an infection caused by poor hygiene in the surgery. Handel himself remained active in music virtually all his life: he was at the organ accompanying a performance of Messiah one week before he died at age 74. He is buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey in London.
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George Frideric Handel was born on February 23, 1685, to Georg and Dorothea Händel in Halle, Germany. To study music he had to overcome his father's objections, and at the same time follow his father's insistence that he study law. But even before Handel had finished his law courses, he was devoted to pursuing a musical career. Although his father would not even allow him to have a musical instrument of his own, he managed to find ways to practice secretly. At about the age of seven he performed at the keyboard before the duke and his court at Weissenfels, Germany. As a result he became the pupil of Friedrich Wilhelm Zacchow, a composer and organist.
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George Frideric Handel was born on February 23, 1685 in Halle, Germany. His father was sixty-three years old, at a time when fifty was considered ancient, and three hundred years before the discovery of Viagra. The old man's first wife had died three years earlier from an epidemic that halved the population of Halle. He quickly remarried, to Dorothea, the thirty-two year old daughter of a Lutheran pastor. George Frideric, named after his father, was their first child. Two daughters would follow.
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George Frideric Handel