George Handel Research Paper

On February 23, 1685, George Friedrich Handel was born in Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg, in what is now present-day Germany. Georg Handel, his father, who was a barber surgeon, wanted Handel to pursue law. While his father had different plans for him, Handel had developed a liking and a gift for music, but his father restricted him from it. However, his mother, Dorothea Taust, was supportive of his passion for music, and was able to practice without his father knowing. When Handel’s father perished, he enrolled as a law student to study under Christian Thomasius, a German Philosopher, at the University of Halle in 1702. He did not study law for too long. At the university, he played the organ for a cathedral, and later on took to playing the violin

He left most of his estate to niece in Germany because he did not have any kids. When Handel was fifty-two years old, in April of 1732, he got a stroke that made him loose sensation on four his right hand fingers. This stroke restricted his performing and sometimes decreased his ability to understand. Yet, he was able to recover quickly, much to the surprise of the public. Handel lost sight in on of his eyes. As he was returning back to London in August of 1750 from a charity concert in Dublin, he suffered an accident in a carriage. The accident caused another eye to fail and then received more side effects the following year. Even with these injuries, he still wrote more pieces, and they often reference his loss of

Contrast is a major element found in Baroque music because it adds a dramatic effect between instruments. Until the Baroque era, musical pieces did not use the concept of a harmony that accompanies the melody. Most of the time, the harmony was a bass line. In that era, orchestras tuned at a different pitch, which varied on location and time. Another example of a different instrument sound would be the performance technique, where it affects the sound of an instrument by the way that it’s played. For example, baroque and modern bows are made different in