George Frideric Handel Essentials

Handel was, for his day, one of the most cosmopolitan of composers, constantly absorbing national styles but then making them entirely his own. He composed a stream of magnificent operas, with Giulio Cesare enduing as one of the greatest. But he also wrote some now-much-loved orchestral works: the Royal Fireworks Music and Water Music were both written for major occasions in 18th-century London. His grasp of English may have always been somewhat approximate, but in works like Messiah (1741) and Jephtha (1751), he simply lifted the poetry into music of sublime expressivity.