George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was a German Baroque composer and a contemporary of Bach and Scarlatti. He was born Halle in Saxony but became a naturalized citizen of Great Britain and lived most of his life in England. He was a child prodigy, performing on the harpsichord, violin, oboe, and organ by the age of seven.

At nine he began composing music. His father wanted him to be a lawyer, but allowed him to have musical training from Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau, the organist of Liebfrauenkirche, Halle. He studied law at the University of Halle to please his father, but quickly left the University when his father died in 1703. Handel became the organist at Calvinist Chapel and over the next few years he traveled Germany and Italy.

In 1710 he visited London and took up residence there in 1712. He was commissioned to write four anthems for King George II's coronation, one of which has been played at every coronation since. Handel never married. He was said to be tempermental at times, and yet he had a pleasing sense of humor and was generous with others. He was a deeply religious man.

He was in poor health and blind for the last eight years of his life. He collapsed during a performance of Messiah and died three days later. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. His most famous works include Messiah, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks.

His monument in Westminster Abbey

On the wall above his grave is a fine monument by the sculptor Louis Francois Roubiliac (with the same inscription as on the stone but with the dates in Roman numerals). The life-size statue, unveiled in 1762, is said to be an exact likeness as the face was modelled from a death mask. Behind the figure, among clouds, is an organ with an angel playing a harp. On the left of the statue is a group of musical instruments and an open score of his most well-known oratorio Messiah, composed in 1741. Directly in front of him is the musical score I know that my Redeemer liveth.

Above the monument a small additional tablet records the Handel festival or ‘Commemoration’ of 1784. This series of concerts of Handel’s music was given in the Abbey by vast numbers of singers and instrumentalists and established a fashion for large-scale performances of Handel’s choral works throughout the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth.