George Frideric Handel
Subtitle: a life with friends
By: Ellen T. Harris
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 472
ISBN-13: 9780393088953
Copyright date: 2014
Subjects: Composers; Friends and associates; Biography
Description: During his lifetime, the sounds of Handel's music reached from court to theater, echoed in cathedrals, and filled crowded taverns, but the man himself - known to most as the composer of Messiah - is a bit of a mystery. In search of the private man behind the public figure, Ellen T. Harris has spent years tracking down letters, diaries, personal accounts, legal cases, and other documents. The result is a tightly woven tapestry of London in the first half of the eighteenth century, one that interlaces vibrant descriptions of Handel's music with stories of loyalty, cunning, and betrayal.
Notes: "Dramatis personae": pages xiii-xix.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 391-409), discography (pages 381-387) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introductions : Handel and his friends; title: Before London (1685-1710: German training, Italian sojourn, arrival in England); title: Politics, patronage, and pension (1710-1727: Birthday ode for Queen Anne to Riccardo primo for George II); title: Commerce and trade (1711-1730: Rinaldo to end of Royal Academy); title: Music at home (1715-1730: Chamber music and keyboard works, private concerts, publications); title: Marriage, wealth, and social status (1728-1741: The "second" Academy to the last opera, Deidamia); title: Ambition, law, and friendship (1738-1749: Saul, Samson, Belshazzar, Susanna, Solomon); title: Making and collecting (1738-1750: Roubiliac sculpture of Handel, Alexander's feast, concertos, collecting); title: Religion and charity (1739-1750: A look back at Esther, then Israel in Egypt, Messiah, Judas Maccabaeus, Theodora); title: Sickness and death (1737-1759: First "paralytic attack," a look back to Admeto, then madness in Saul and Hercules, and Jephtha to The triumph of time and truth); title: Wills and legacies; title: Appendix 1. Currency, living costs, wages, and fees; title: Appendix 2. A very select discography.