Handel in London

by Jane Glover

Overview

In 1712, a young German composer followed his princely master to London and would remain there for the rest of his life. That master would become King George II and the composer was George Freidrich Handel. Handel, then still only twenty-seven and largely self-taught, would be at the heart of music activity in London for the next four decades, composing masterpiece after masterpiece, whether the glorious coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, operas such as Rinaldo and Alcina or the great oratorios, culminating, of course, in Messiah. Here, Jane Glover, who has conducted Handel’s work in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world, draws on her profound understanding of music and musicians to tell Handel’s story. It is a story of music-making and musicianship, but also of courts and cabals of theatrical rivalries and of eighteenth-century society. It is also, of course the story of some of the most remarkable music ever written, music that has been played and sung, and loved, in this country—and throughout the world—for three hundred years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681779478
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	12/04/2018
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	547,194
File size:	40 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Jane Glover, author of Mozart’s Women, has had a long and hugely successful career as a conductor. She has been Music Director of the Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Artistic Director of The London Mozart Players, and has conducted all the major symphony and chamber orchestras in Britain. She appears regularly at the BBC Proms and is a regular broadcaster for television series on Mozart. She lives in London.
Jane Glover, author of Mozart's Women, has had a long and hugely successful career as a conductor. She has been Music Director of the Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Artistic Director of The London Mozart Players, and has conducted all the major symphony and chamber orchestras in Britain. She appears regularly at the BBC Proms and is a regular broadcaster for television series on Mozart. She lives in London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Foreword ix

Author's Note xiii

Preface xv

1 Early Years

An infant rais'd by thy command' Saul 1

2 London, 1710

'Populous cities please me then' L'Allegro 13

3 The Final Stuart Years

'Cease, ruler of the day, to rise' Hercules 25

4 Hanover in London

'From mighty kings he took the spoil' Judas Maccabaeus 57

5 The Launch of the Royal Academy

'Music, spread thy voice around' Solomon 81

6 The Fortunes of the Royal Academy

'Ah! think what ills the jealous prove' Hercules 107

7 New Beginnings

'Now a different measure try' Solomon 153

8 New Endings

'Toss 'd from thought to thought I rove' Alexander Balus 179

9 Defiance

'All danger disdaining' Deborah 217

10 Recovery and Reinvention

'Strange reverse of human fate' Alexander Balus 259

11 'Hallelujah' 295

12 Winding Down

'Great in wisdom, great in glory' Judas Marcabaeus 317

13 The Final Act

'With honour let desert be crown'd' Judas Maccabaeus 367

Afterword 389

Acknowledgements 391

Bibliography 393

Notes 397

Index 411

Editorial Reviews

★ 12/17/2018

Glover (Mozart’s Women) narrates with rich detail the musical life of George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) in this lively biography. In 1710, when he was 25, the confident young German composer strode into Princess Caroline’s court in Hanover, where he dazzled everyone with his good looks and his musical ability. He was offered a post as Kapellmeister (chief music maker), but Handel was restless and decided instead to travel to London (with its developing music scene), which he then used as a base most of the rest of his life. Glover astutely chronicles many of the works Handel composed, as with his assessment of the 1711 opera Rinaldo, which demonstrated Handel’s flair for the theatrical and his ingenuity in using the different voices of instruments in the orchestra. Glover points out that Handel consistently recognized and used the talents of his singers, librettists, and musicians to produce operas that were inventive and sometimes audacious, such as Radamisto, which launched the Royal Academy of Music in 1720. In 1741, Handel, who had already composed 70 dramatic works while in London, traveled to Dublin, where he wrote the oratorio Messiah, which was performed the following year to critical acclaim. Glover’s stirring and vibrant biography captures Handel’s remarkable output and his breathtaking innovation. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

Glover uses her own experience as a conductor of Mozart's operas to give lucid and pertinent insights into the music. Glover neatly and satisfyingly ties up the loose ends in the story of this genius of astonishing musical miracles. Her passion for the music shines through this touching, vividly told story.

The Sunday Times of London (Praise for Mozart's Women)

Glover, a respected conductor, views Mozart through the women in his life.

The New Yorker (Praise for Mozart's Women)

Glover conjures up an extraordinary past so convincingly that its wonders seem to stray off the page and into our present. Every detail—of business and of manners; of royalty and politics—enriches her portrait of a labyrinthine society while each insight illuminates the workings of genius.

Barnes & Noble Review

As we might expect from a conductor of Glover’s experience, her descriptions of Handel’s music—of how the composer married text with sound to such extraordinary effect—are deeply perceptive. Her explanations of operatic form are clear and deft.

The American Scholar

A biography of such gusto and brilliance that it is as pleasurable as informative. Glover illuminates every aspect of Handel’s work and describes the plots and musical distinctions of most of the operas and oratorios so fetchingly that the reader itches to hear and see them. She also brings Handel’s times and most constant collaborators, sponsors, and antagonists to vivid life as she keeps the rather-elusive maestro, who wrote almost nothing about himself, firmly in focus.

Booklist (starred)

Glover’s account of Handel in London examines how a German musician of strong opinions and unpredictable temperament captured the rhythms of a world capital. The merit of Handel in London is to focus on the mechanics and context of how Handel conceived and achieved music of deathless fascination. Ms. Glover, the first woman music director of a London orchestra when she led the London Mozart Players in the 1980s, has conducted more than 100 ‘Messiahs’; she ought to know.

Wall Street Journal

11/01/2018
George Friderich Handel (1685{amp}ndash;1750) is one of the great composers of the baroque style, though he is sometimes overshadowed by his contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach. If for nothing else, Handel will always be famous for his ever-popular oratorio Messiah. Yet he also wrote numerous operas, other oratorios, and instrumental pieces. Conductor, musical director, and author Glover (Mozart's Women) concentrates here on German-born Handel's time in London, where he lived from 1712 until his death. One of the most intriguing aspects of this biography is Handel's relations with members of the British monarchy, who offered continuing financial support for his musical aspirations. Another strength is its description of the cultural and political setting in which Handel worked. Remarkably, there is hardly a mention of Handel's personal life, for instance, his attitude toward women or religion. Moreover, there is no commentary on Handel's opinion of the work of other composers, though Bach is noted in passing. Numerous usually Italian arias from Handel's operas are cited in the text but rarely translated. VERDICT Recommended for readers who wish to know more about Handel as an empresario for his own works.{amp}mdash;Edward B. Cone, New York

Library Journal

★ 2018-10-02

How and why the young German musical genius moved to London, where his budding talent blossomed.

Glover (Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music, 2006) is a celebrated veteran conductor (the London Mozart Players and others) and musical authority who has more than 40 years of experience as a musician. She brings all her knowledge and experience to bear in this thorough and revealing work about the prolific and prodigious George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). The author's approach is steadfastly chronological: She begins with Handel's birth family (his father was a barber-surgeon) and then advances steadily toward his blindness and death. Although Glover focuses on the composer's life and music, she devotes large portions of the narrative to the royal politics of his time—Handel was an intimate at the court of George I and II; members of the royal family routinely attended performances of his works and supported him financially—and she keeps us apprised throughout of the cultural and social affairs of the English. Although the author writes for a general readership, she does explore many of his major works—operas, oratorios, occasional music—in considerable detail, explorations that will resonate most clearly with musically sophisticated readers. She also assesses Handel's personality—his temper, his ferocious work ethic—and his personal life, though there is not much about his love life (he never married). Glover also shows us a prescient, adaptable Handel, an artist sensitive to shifting times and interests. When Londoners' interest in the Italian opera waned, he turned to oratorios sometimes based on the works of notable English poets, including Dryden Milton. Messiah also gets its due, and the author informs us that there is no evidence for the legend about the king's standing during "Hallelujah." Near the end she includes a touching scene: Handel visiting the declining Jonathan Swift.

Lush and illuminating—a lovely structure built on a solid foundation of research, expertise, and affection.

Kirkus Reviews