Handel essays

Handel essays George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Germany on February 23, 1685. Early in his life Handel began to study music. He started studying music in 1694 against his fathers wishes. From his very childhood Handel had discovered such a strong propensity to music, that his father, who always intended him for the study of Civil Law, had reason to be alarmed. Perceiving that this inclination still increased, he took every method to oppose it. He strictly forbad him to meddle with any musical instrument; nothing of that kind was suffered to remain in the house, nor was he ever permitted to go to any other, where such kind of furniture was in use. All this caution and art, instead of restraining, did but augment his passion. He had found means to get a little clavichord privately conveyd to a room at the top of the house (Mainwaring, 12-13). On one of Handels family visits to Saxe-Weissenfels court, where Handels half-brother Karl, who is 36 years older than him, held the position of Valet de chambre and his father the position of court surgeon, Handels organ playing attracted the attention of the duke, who urged Handels father to allow him to study music as well as law (Dean and Hicks, 1-2). Handel was then placed under the tuition of F.W. Zachow, an organist In 1706, Handel traveled to Italy where he met Arcangelo Corelli and Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti who had influenced his music. The five years he spent in Italy he learned the Italian music styles concerto grosso, chamber cantata, and opera seria. His writing for strings undoubtedly benefited from his acquaintance with Corelli (Dean and Hicks, 12-13). From Italy, Handel then decided to visit England. He decided to settle in London where he had worked for most of his life, and never returned to Germany. In England is where he had his biggest challenge of getting the people intereste...