The son of a surgeon who was unwilling to allow him a musical education, Handel studied law at the University of Halle before moving to Hamburg when his father died in 1703.

He served as second violinist in the Hamburg Opera Orchestra and subsequently as harpsichordist and composer.

From 1706 until 1710 he was in Italy, where he soon mastered the Italian musical styles and techniques and where he met Scarlatti in Rome.

Then he was appointed kapellmeister to the court of the Elector of Hanover and, in the same year, he visited London where his opera "Rinaldo" enjoyed great success.

He liked England so much he settled there permantly two years later and in 1726 became a naturalised English citizen.

When his former patron, the Elector of Hanover, became King George I of England, he won favour with the court and was given a life pension.

He wrote and produced dozens of operas for various English companies in which he had a financial stake.

The decline of the Italian operatic style left Handel bankrupt and to extricate himself he began to compose oratorias with English texts.

These reflected the fullness and richness of the opera seria style, but released him from the restrictions of the genre and appealed more to English Protestant sensibilities.

During the last years of his life he was nearly blind, but he continued to conduct performances of his works and revise some of his scores.

Handel wrote over forty Italian operas, the majority while he was director of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

The operatic conventions of the time, restricting subject and form, and the major use of castrato singers in the principal male r鬺es, led to a general neglect of this important part of Handel's work until recent years, with the increased cultivation of male soprano and male alto voices and a growing understanding of Handel's achievement within the limitations of the genre.

Arias and other operatic excerpts, however, have retained a continued place in vocal and to some extent in instrumental repertoire.

In particular the aria from the opera Serse of 1738, "Ombra mai fu", popularly known as Handel's Largo, has re-appeared in every possible arrangement.

Other familiar arias include Lascia ch'io pianga from Rinaldo, "Pianger?la sorte mia" from Giulio Cesare and "Care selve" from Atalanta.

- MIDI FILE - from "Rinaldo": "Lascia che io pianga" (3'16'')

"Messiah" is by far the best known of all English oratorios. It deals with the birth, passion and resurrection of Christ, using a text partly derived from the Bible and from the version of the Psalms from the Church of England Book of Common Prayer.

- MIDI FILE - from Messiah:

And The Glory Of The Lord (2'59'')
And He Shall Purify (2'19'')
O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings (1'38'')
For Unto Us A Child Is Born (3'57'')
His Yoke Is Easy (2'16'')
Behold, The Lamb Of God (2'33'')
He Was Despised (10'31'')
Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs (1'47'')
And With His Stripes We Are Healed (1'52'')
All We Like Sheep (3'48'')
He Trusted In God (2'25'')
Lift Up Your Heads (3'17'')
Let All The Angels (1'28'')
The Lord Gave The Word (1'01'')
Let Us Break Their Bonds (2'01'')
Hallelujah (4'07'')
Since By Man Came Death (1'54'')
But Thanks Be To God (2'21'')
Worthy - Blessing And Honour - Amen (7'36'')

The work was completed and first performed in 1742 and later repeated annually for the benfit of the Foundling Hospital in London where Handel served as a governor.

"Israel in Egypt", "Judas Maccabaeus", "Samson", based on Milton, and "Solomon" are only some of the English oratorios by Handel that are familiar in whole, or in part, to choirs and audiences.

To these may be added the secular oratorio "Semele", with a text by the dramatist William Congreve, dealing with an episode from classical mythology and including, for a disguised Jupiter, the well known aria Where'er you walk.

Handel wrote music for the Catholic liturgy in 1707, when he was in Rome.

In England, under the patronage of the Duke of Chandos, he wrote a set of anthems, the so-called Chandos Anthems.

"The Four Coronation Anthems", written for the coronation of George II in 1727, represent music for a royal ceremonial occasion at its most impressive.

Other settings for the Anglican liturgy include the "Utrecht Te Deum" of 1713, celebrating the Peace of Utrecht, and the "Dettingen Te Deum", a celebration of the victory of Dettingen over the French army in 1743.

The story of the shepherd and shepherdess Acis and Galatea and the monster Polyphemus forms the basis of the pastoral "Acis and Galatea", first performed in 1718.

The aria of Polyphemus "O ruddier than the cherry" is in popular baritone repertoire.

"L'allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato", based on Milton and completed in 1740, provides at least one popular soprano aria, "Sweet bird".

In the earlier part of his career Handel wrote a large number of solo and duo Italian cantatas, with instrumental accompaniment, as well as vocal duets and trios with the more economical accompaniment of basso continuo, a chordal and a bass instrument.

This last repertoire deserves further exploration.

Since Corelli, a musician who was said to have found Handel's "French" style alien to Italian tradition, the "concerto grosso" had continued as the most popular Baroque orchestral form, with a small concertino group, usually of 2 violins, cello and harpsichord, contrasted with the whole string orchestra.

- MIDI FILE - from Concerto Grosso op.6 n.2: 2nd mov. (2'36'')

Handel wrote and published in 1739 a set of 12 such concertos, Opus 6, designed originally for strings and continuo.

An earlier compilation of 6 concerti grossi, scored also for wind instruments, had been published in London in 1734.

Alexander's Feast is one of the concertos first performed with the choral work of that name, a setting of Dryden in celebration of the Feast of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, in 1736.

His 16 Organ Concertos - the first 6 included in Opus 4 and a further six in Opus 7 - served a practical and novel purpose as interval music, to be played at performances of oratorio.

No. 13 is generally known as "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale".

The Water Music Suite is a set of pieces written in 1717 to entertain George I as he was rowed up the Thames to supper at Chelsea, and the "Music for the Royal Fireworks", written in 1749, preceded a firework display in Green Park, a celebration of the Peace of Aix-la-chapelle.

- MIDI FILE - from "Water Music": Suite No.2 (1'35'')

Music for smaller groups of performers by Handel includes a number of Trio Sonatas, the majority for 2 violins and basso continuo, and a number of sonatas for solo instrument and continuo, 6 for recorder and 6 for violin.

The publisher of the twelve sonatas of Opus 1, about 1730, described a dozen of these sonatas as for treble instrument and continuo, allowing potential performers a freedom of choice that was not altogether unusual at the time.

- MIDI FILE - from Sonata n.6: Allegro for violin and b.c. (1'40'')

Handel left a great deal of keyboard music, most of it for the harpsichord and much of it written early in his career.

The first eight Suites for harpsichord were published by the composer in 1720, followed in 1733 by a second collection of eight Suites, assembled largely by the publisher.

The G major Chaconne, using a popular Baroque variation form, consists of 62 variations on a simple repeated bass pattern.

The Air from Suite n. 5, with its five following variations, has won fame under the title "The Harmonious Blacksmith", a reference to an unlikely anecdote concerning the inspiration of the piece.