Handel

Master Musicians Series

by Donald Burrows

Celebrating its 100th anniversary, this extraordinary series continues to amaze and captivate its readers with detailed insight into the lives and work of music's geniuses. Unlike other composer biographies that focus narrowly on the music, this series explores the personal history of each
composer and the social context surrounding the music. In a precise, engaging, and authoritative manner, each volume combines a vivid portrait of the master musicians' inspirations, influences, life experiences, even their weaknesses, with an accessible discussion of their work-all in roughly 300
pages. Further, each volume offers superb reference material, including a detailed life and times chronology, a complete list of works, a personalia glossary highlighting the important people in the composer's life, and a select bibliography. Under the supervision of music expert and series general
editor Stanley Sadie, Master Musicians will certainly proceed to delight music scholars, serious musicians, and all music lovers for another hundred years.
In this volume, Donald Burrows's relates Handel's life and his music, devoting particular attention to two crucial junctures in Handel's his transition from a church-trained musician in Germany to a successful opera composer in London, and the gradual transformation of his theater
career from opera to oratorio, some thirty years later. In the oratorio form, as Burrows demonstrates, Handel was able to combine the techniques of large-scale construction and of aria writing that he had developed in his operas with an experience of choral music that went back to his earliest
training as a church organist. The result was music that succeeds to this day in capturing the imagination of a vast audience.

Genres: Music, Biography

Paperback

First published June 1, 1994

About the author

Donald James Burrows is Professor of Music at the Open University, and a leading scholar of the music of George Frideric Handel

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This extensive biography is very well researched, covering Handel's life in great detail. The prose also flows well so that it is not a slog despite all the detail. Burrows concentrates heavily on the creation of Handel's work: where and when he wrote pieces and the circumstances and personnel for their early performances. My only complaint is that Burrows thus focuses on Handel's creative and professional life to the near exclusion of his personal or social life. There is also very little explanation of 18th century London musical life and how Handel navigated it first as an immigrant and then as a prominent composer.

[Tanya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not much on Handel or his life. This is mostly about the writing of his works, very little actual biography of the man, what he was like, interactions with others, and other typical biographies. If you were doing research on his various works and comparing them it would be a useful resource. I was very disappointed in it otherwise.