Bachtrack top ten: George Frideric Handel

It may be an apocryphal story, but Johann Sebastian Bach is attributed as once saying: “Handel is the only person I would wish to see before I die, and the only person I would wish to be, were I not Bach.” Born just a few weeks – and 80 miles – apart, the two composers never actually met, although there was a near-miss when Bach travelled to Halle only to find Handel had left town the previous day. 

Like Bach, George Frideric Handel – or Georg Friedrich Händel as he was born in 1685 – was one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, although their lives took very different paths. Bach was a church composer, never left Germany, and was not especially famous during his lifetime. Handel, on the other hand, was a megastar… and quite the cosmopolitan composer too. Born in Halle, he played in the opera orchestra in Hamburg before setting off to Italy (1706–10), where he beat the Italians at their own game composing highly successful operas and cantatas in the local style. 

In 1710, Handel was appointed Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover (the future King George I of England), and the following year he travelled to London, where his new opera Rinaldo was such a hit that Handel sniffed an opportunity. In 1712, Handel settled permanently in London, becoming a naturalised British citizen in 1727, which allowed him to be appointed a composer of the Chapel Royal.

Due to Handel’s influence, Italian opera became all the rage in London, with rival companies and singers engaged in fierce competition, the divas engaged in ever more florid vocal displays. Handel was a prolific opera composer, composing over 40 in a 30-year span. But when the art form’s popularity began to wane, he turned his attention to writing English oratorios: music on sacred subjects, but not designed for the stage. He also composed ceremonial music, including the four Coronation Anthems for George II’s coronation. Handel was adept at tapping into the English national character. “What the English like is something they can beat time to,” he once explained to Gluck, “something that hits them straight on the drum of the ear.” 

1Giulio Cesare in Egitto

Of Handel’s many operas, Giulio Cesare in Egitto is my favourite, following Julius Caesar’s sexploits wooing Cleopatra, and his avenging the murder of Pompey by her brother, Ptolemy. It is an opera packed with action – and hit tunes. The roles of Cesare and Cleopatra were created for star castrato Senesino and the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni. I adore Sir David McVicar’s rollicking staging for Glyndebourne, which moves the action from 48BC to the height of the British Empire, with Egypt under Ottoman rule. “Entertainment is not a dirty word!” he declared. How true!

2Music for the Royal Fireworks

Handel became the go-to composer for big ceremonial occasions and in 1749 was commissioned by George II to write music to accompany the fireworks in Green Park celebrating the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which marked the end of the War of the Austrian Succession. It’s a wonderfully over-the-top racket, scored for 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, nine trumpets, nine natural horns and three pairs of timpani! These forces are rarely assembled these days, but I’ll not forget a late night Prom concert, where Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel made the Royal Albert Hall rock!

3Coronation Anthem no. 1: Zadok the Priest

Handel composed four anthems for the coronation of King George II in 1727, of which Zadok the Priest is the best known, and which has been performed at every British coronation since – most recently, of course, at the crowning of Charles III in 2023. The long instrumental section at the start builds a sense of anticipation before the chorus bursts in with text drawn from the first chapter of 1 Kings. 

4Alcina 

At Covent Garden in 1735, just a year before his opera company collapsed, Handel enjoyed one of his greatest successes, Alcina. The libretto, based on Riccardo Broschi's L’isola di Alcina (1728), drawn from Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando furioso, contains love entanglements, disguises and magic as Alcina, a sorceress who turns her conquests into wild beasts, is put to the test by true love. Far from being a wicked caricature, though, Handel presents Alcina as vulnerable, most of her arias being touching depictions of love and despair. The opera’s hit number, “Tornami a vagheggiar”, is sung by Alcina’s sister, Morgana, although in some productions it is given to Alcina herself. 

5Water Music

Plenty of composers wrote music to accompany their patrons’ feasting, but Handel went one better. In 1717, George I requested music to accompany an evening trip along the River Thames, from Whitehall Palace to Chelsea. The royal barge, propelled by the rising tide, was joined by another which transported around 50 musicians who played Handel’s three suites of high-spirited music, often in dance form. Many other boats jostled for position to hear the concert. The king was so delighted that he ordered the music to be played three more times. It may have looked something like this: 

6Rinaldo 

Rinaldo was the first Italian opera written for the London stage, first performed at the Queen’s Theatre in Haymarket on 24th February 1711. Handel, an effective recycler, borrowed music he had composed during his years in Italy (1706–10). Set around the city of Jerusalem during the First Crusade as the Christians lay siege to the Saracens, whose queen, Armida (another Handel sorceress!), is out to defeat the knight, Rinaldo. Full of great arias, particularly “Lascia ch’io pianga”, Rinaldo was the most frequently performed of Handel’s operas during his lifetime. 

7Concerto grosso in A major, Op.6 no.11

Although he was principally a vocal composer, Handel wrote two huge sets of concerti grossi, based on the model of Arcangelo Corelli he encountered on his Italian travels. These concertos put a small group of players into the spotlight, rather than one principal soloist. Handel’s second set (Op.6) contains twelve concertos, written for stringed instruments and featuring some of his most brilliant instrumental writing. 

8Serse

Of Handel’s other operas, I could have picked several in this top ten. Serse (1738) is loosely based on Xerses I of Persia, who is engaged to Amastris, but has fallen in love with Romilda, the daughter of a general, Ariodate. The aria “Ombra mai fu” is sung by Xerxes to a plane tree, giving thanks for furnishing the king with shade. It is often known as “Handel’s Largo” – even though the score is marked Larghetto – and is one of Handel’s best-loved arias. 

9Theodora 

Those who know me won’t be surprised by the absence of Messiah from this top ten, an overlong oratorio that I’ve sat through too many times in less-than-stellar performances in cold cathedrals and churches. It contains some wonderful music, of course, but then so do Handel’s many other oratorios – Saul, Jephtha, Israel in Egypt, Solomon (with its Arrival of the Queen of Sheba and fabulous double choruses). But I’ve gone for Theodora, Handel’s own favourite, composed late in his life when he was rapidly going blind. It is not an Old Testament story, but is about the Christian martyr Theodora and her Christian-converted Roman lover, Didymus. “As with rosy steps the morn” is one of Handel’s most gorgeous odes, as Irene instils her fellow Christians with courage in the face of religious persecution. 

10Dixit Dominus

We close with something choral from Handel’s time in Italy, the Dixit Dominus (1707), a terrific psalm setting that’s an energetic showpiece for the choir, demonstrating great harmonic invention and dramatic gesture. The busy fugato section in the Judicabit in nationibus, featuring percussive chords on “conquassabit”, is especially powerful, setting the violent text: “He shall judge the nations, fill the places with destruction, and shatter the skulls in the land of the many”.