George Frideric Handel

The Thirty Years' War brought extensive destruction to Halle, and by the 1680s it was impoverished.

However, since the middle of the war the city had been under the administration of the Duke of Saxony, and soon after the end of the war he would bring musicians trained in Dresden to his court in Weissenfels.

The arts and music, however, flourished only among the higher strata (not only in Halle but throughout Germany), of which Handel's family was not a part.

Georg Händel (senior) was born at the beginning of the war and was apprenticed to a barber in Halle at the age of 14 after his father died.

When he was 20, he married the widow of the official barber-surgeon of a suburb of Halle, inheriting his practice.

With this, Georg determinedly began the process of becoming self-made; by dint of his "conservative, steady, thrifty, unadventurous" lifestyle, he guided the five children he had with Anna who reached adulthood into the medical profession (except his youngest daughter, who married a government official).

Anna died in 1682.

Within a year Georg married again, this time to the daughter of a Lutheran minister, Pastor Georg Taust of the Church of St. Bartholomew in Giebichenstein, who himself came from a long line of Lutheran pastors.

George Frideric was the second child of this marriage; the first son was stillborn.

George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (baptised Georg Fried(e)rich Händel, ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos.

Handel was born in 1685 (the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti) in Halle, in the Duchy of Magdeburg, then part of Brandenburg-Prussia.

His parents were Georg Händel, aged 63, and Dorothea Taust.

His father was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg.

Halle was a relatively prosperous city, home of a salt-mining industry, a centre of trade, and a member of the Hanseatic League.

Two younger sisters arrived afterwards: Dorthea Sophia, born on 6 October 1687, and Johanna Christiana, born on 10 January 1690.

Early in his life Handel is reported to have attended the Gymnasium in Halle, where the headmaster, Johann Praetorius (musician), was reputed to be an ardent musician.

Whether Handel remained there, and if he did for how long, is unknown, but many biographers suggest that he was withdrawn from school by his father, based on the characterization of him by Handel's first biographer, John Mainwaring.

Mainwaring is the source for almost all information (little as it is) of Handel's childhood, and much of that information came from J. C. Smith Jr., Handel's confidant and copyist.

Whether it came from Smith or elsewhere, Mainwaring frequently relates misinformation.

It is from Mainwaring that the portrait comes of Handel's father as implacably opposed to any musical education.

Mainwaring writes that Georg Händel was "alarmed" at Handel's very early propensity for music, "took every measure to oppose it", including forbidding any musical instrument in the house and preventing Handel from going to any house where they might be found.

This did nothing to dampen young Handel's inclination; in fact, it did the reverse.

Mainwaring tells the story of Handel's secret attic spinet: Handel "found means to get a little clavichord privately convey'd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep".

Although both John Hawkins and Charles Burney credited this tale, Schoelcher found it nearly "incredible" and a feat of "poetic imagination" and Lang considers it one of the unproven "romantic stories" that surrounded Handel's childhood.

Handel received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727.

He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque.

In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music.

He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age.

Handel started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera.

One of his four coronation anthems, Zadok the Priest, has been performed at every British coronation since 1727.

In 1737, he had a physical breakdown, changed direction creatively, and addressed the middle class and made a transition to English choral works.

After his success with Messiah (1742), he never composed an Italian opera again.

His orchestral Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks remain steadfastly popular.

Almost blind, he died in 1759, a respected and rich man, and was given a state funeral at Westminster Abbey.

Handel composed more than forty opere serie over a period of more than thirty years.

Since the late 1960s, interest in Handel's music has grown.

The musicologist Winton Dean wrote that "Handel was not only a great composer; he was a dramatic genius of the first order."

His music was admired by Classical-era composers, especially Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.

The Margrave of Brandenburg became the administrator of the archiepiscopal territories of Mainz, including Magdeburg when they converted, and by the early 17th century held his court in Halle, which attracted renowned musicians.

Even the smaller churches all had "able organists and fair choirs", and humanities and the letters thrived (Shakespeare was performed in the theatres early in the 17th century).