He was intrigued by instruments, the sounds they could make and the feelings they could evoke. His practical father intervened and forbade him from taking part in what he called "musical nonsense.
That wasn't about to stop the determined little youngster. By some unknown means, George was able to get a small clavichord and smuggle it to a tiny room at the top of the house. Then, at night, while the rest of the family was asleep, George would silently creep up to the room and play music, ever so quietly, late into the night.
It was there that Handel discovered the magic of music. It came as a complete surprise to family and friends at church one day when the eight-year-old climbed up on the organ bench and began to play the postlude. Everyone was shocked, especially his father, who had no idea his son was so gifted.
Even so, his father sternly reminded son that his destiny was for something more practical than music. Eventually, Handel enrolled in law school according to his father's wishes, but the musical pull was too much.
Soon, he left the confines of the classroom and headed out on the road. He traveled from city to city, learning what he could about each area's musical styles and gifts before he finally settled in London in at age The season of saw the production of Handel's Alessandro. This marked the beginning of an intense rivalry between Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni, two prima donnas leading female opera singers whose hostility greatly harmed the cause of Italian opera in London. Other factors no doubt lent weight to the growing public disappointment, but this single event seemed to have caused opposition to Italian opera in London and introduced a succession of developments that led to its fall.
Apparently undismayed, Handel immediately formed the New Royal Academy of Music in partnership with a Swiss entrepreneur. After a whirlwind trip to Germany to audition new singers and to visit his mother, now blind and alone, Handel returned to London in time to open the new season.
Thereafter his operas flowed forth on the average of two per year. In spite of the quality of these operas, Italian opera grew ever less popular in London. In April Handel suffered a stroke. He recuperated during the summer at Aix-la-Chapelle, returning to London in time to start the next season.
Finally, with the miserable failure of Imeneo and Deidamia , he at last gave up and wrote no more new operas. Handel's ultimate failure with operas was offset by ever-increasing success with his oratorios.
These provided a new vehicle, the possibilities of which he had begun to explore and experiment with nearly a decade earlier. Indeed these established a new vogue fashion , in which Handel fared better with London audiences than he ever had with Italian opera. As if to test a possible market for dramatic compositions in English, Handel revived past operas with revisions to the oratorio style, meeting with much success.
Producing oratorios was a profitable business. As a direct consequence, the oratorio became a regular feature of each season, with Handel leading the field, as he had done previously with Italian opera.
It was obvious that the new form was on its way to becoming an established feature of English concert life. During the Lenten the period of religious fasting for Christians season in , Handel gave no less than fourteen concerts, consisting mainly of oratorios. Handel's personal health, however, continued to falter. In total blindness set in. From that time on he was limited to revising earlier works with outside assistance, and to improvising on organ and harpsichord in public performances.
Handel's accomplishment during the last creative decade of his life seems almost miraculous when the Italian cantatas, several concertos, and a variety of other works are added to his twenty major works. He died in London on April 14, Surveying Handel's entire creative life, one gains a sense of spontaneous instinctive and incredibly abundant creative flow.
This is confirmed by the marvelous collections of his work preserved at the Fitzwilliam and British museums in England, which reveal not only the enormous bulk of his creative achievement but also something of his uncompromising critical judgment. There is scarcely a page without deletions; frequently, he struck out whole passages. He obviously knew the art of heavy pruning, and his works profited greatly from it. Handel's propensity to "write like the very devil" proved invaluable, in view of the demands imposed upon his time and energies in operatic composition throughout most of his career.
Handel's father did not approve of his son's love of music. His mother had to smuggle a small keyboard into the attic of their house. The young boy would play the instrument up there, in secret on his own, when his father was not around. Discover Music. See more Handel News. Red Priest. See more Handel Music. See more Handel Pictures. See more Handel Album Reviews. See more Handel Guides.
George Frideric Handel — Biography. The fast and friendly guide to Handel. Handel: the man. Top Handel pieces 1.
0コメント