George Frideric Handel's Passion For Music

George Frideric Handel was born February 23, 1685 in Halle, Germany, being born the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach. His father was 73 years old at the time of his birth. George, at a young age, had a passion for music, but his father wanted him to pursue a career in civil law. George’s father believed that music would not provide a real source of income and he would not even allow his son to own an instrument. Although his father objected, George’s mother, Dorothy, supported his love for music and encouraged him to practice. With the help of his mother, he would practice secretly to develop his skill and talent. When George was seven, he had the opportunity to play the organ for a duke’s court and there was where he met Freidrich Zachow,

Handel also reworked his 1708 Italian serenate, Aci, Galatea e Polifemoninto Acis and Galatea, to be performed in the gardens of the Duke’s estate. Handel also composed a Te Deum and Jubilate to celebrate the treaty of Utrecht, ending the War of Spanish Succession in 1713. Handel’s music did replace an earlier setting of the canticles by Purcell demonstrates his new-found prestige in London society. In 1714, his former employer in Hanover now became King in England, in a rapidly expanding city, Italian opera and French theatre that was under the German monarch. Handel yet enjoyed two notable operatic successes, Teseo and Amadigi, and one failure, II pastor fido. Handel became more popular with the founding of the Royal Academy of Music in 1719. Organizers anticipated that opposition would improve Handel's creativity and got help from two Italian composers, Giovanni Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti. At first Handel was no more the favorite compared to Bononcini, but anti-Catholic suspicions were growing in London, making a German Protestant seem the more trustworthy choice. Handel had three masterpieces: Giulio Cesare (February 1724),Tamerlano (Oct 1724) and Rodelinda (Feb 1725). But the three operas proved to be the high point of the Royal Academy's activities, and it closed in 1728 facing financial problems and stiff competition from other