Conductor's Guide to Handel's The Water Music in Three Suites Complete

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George Frideric Handel was born in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti, in the central German city of Halle. When Handel was just 10 years old, during a visit to a relative employed at the court of Johann Adolph, Duke of Weissenfels, his playing on the organ made such an impression that the Duke financed the boy's music studies. He set out for Italy in the autumn of 1706. During the next four years he stayed in Florence, Rome, Venice, and other cities, hearing the music of his foremost Italian colleagues.

Handel arrived in London in September 1710, and scored a conspicuous success with his opera Rinaldo. Although he could not have known it at the time, this would be merely the first of many triumphs he would achieve in the English capital. He eventually became, for all practical purposes, England's national composer.

Despite his celebrity, Handel was in many ways a very private person. As a result, our knowledge of his personality and character is somewhat obscure. Certainly he was pragmatic and worldly, as the enterprising nature of his opera and oratorio attests. But he also reportedly fell into a "divine rapture", as one of his contemporaries described, when composing Messiah. He could be stubborn and angry when provoked, but he could also be remarkably generous. Handel never married, and his relationship with the fair sex remains a mystery. An English contemporary observed that "his Amours were rather of short duration". Music, it seems, served as his one true companion.

The Musically Speaking Conductor's Guides are your link to an appreciation of the greatest classical music ever performed. Let Maestro Gerard Schwarz enrich your classical music listening enjoyment by illuminating the great works of the Masters with revealing commentary and educational insight.

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