George Frideric Handel
1685 – 1759 German-British composer
German-born composer who settled in London and wrote Messiah, one of the most performed choral works in the world.
- Religion
- Lutheran, later Anglican
- Affiliations
- English court and London theatres
George Frideric Handel trained in Germany and Italy before settling in London, where he became a leading composer of Italian opera and, later, English oratorio. His oratorio Messiah, first performed in Dublin in 1742, set biblical texts to music and became a fixture of the choral repertoire, especially at Christmas and Easter. He wrote for a paying public rather than only for a court, and he became a naturalised British subject.
Connections
- associate of Johann Sebastian Bach — Born the same year, 1685, the two leading German composers of the late Baroque, though they never met.
In the timeline
- 1742 Handel's Messiah premieres composer