Celebrating the life and legacy of Georg Friedrich in Britain and beyond.

 

 

What do you get a guy on his 332nd birthday? Well, you better hurry up and figure it out, because it's tomorrow.

Georg Friedrich Händel, born in Halle February 23rd, 1685 the son of a self-made barber and the daughter of a Lutheran minister in a Saxon town notable for its salt mines. It was also a hotbed for great musicians; the Margrave of Brandenburg held court there. His papa thought music was sissy stuff. Little Georg thought otherwise.

It was after his father died that Georg felt he could finally dedicate his energies to music. Blossoming into the world of opera, he made his way to Italy where he was soon hailed as il caro Sassone (the dear Saxon). An eager opportunist, he spied the void in the British music scene and set out from Florence to London in his late twenties. His objective: to gift the British masses with Italian opera written just for them (and make a pretty penny). And the rest, my friends, is history – a history you can watch below!

Join Charles Hazelwood, the Army of Generals, and some very special guest soloists on a journey into just how responsible Handel was for the sonic landscape of early 18th century western art music and how he foreshadowed the architectural nature of the Classical era to come. From the BBC: The Birth of British Music: Handel the Conquering.

 

 

And tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Mid-week Musicology here on Classic107.com!