Handel in London

Jane Glover

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781681779478
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Biographies

In 1712, a young German composer followed his princely master to London and would remain there for the rest of his life. That master would become King George II and the composer was George Freidrich Handel. Handel, then still only twenty-seven and largely self-taught, would be at the heart of music activity in London for the next four decades, composing masterpiece after masterpiece, whether the glorious coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, operas such as Rinaldo and Alcina or the great oratorios, culminating, of course, in Messiah. Here, Jane Glover, who has conducted Handel's work in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world, draws on her profound understanding of music and musicians to tell Handel's story. It is a story of music-making and musicianship, but also of courts and cabals of theatrical rivalries and of eighteenth-century society. It is also, of course the story of some of the most remarkable music ever written, music that has been played and sung, and loved, in this country—and throughout the world—for three hundred years.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Foreword
• Author’s Note
• Preface
• 1. Early Years: ‘An infant rais’d by thy command’
• 2. London, 1710: ‘Populous cities please me then’
• 3. The Final Stuart Years: ‘Cease, ruler of the day, to rise’
• 4. Hanover in London: ‘From mighty kings he took the spoil’
• 5. The Launch of the Royal Academy: ‘Music, spread thy voice around’
• 6. The Fortunes of the Royal Academy: ‘Ah! think what ills the jealous prove’
• 7. New Beginnings: ‘Now a different measure try’
• 8. New Endings: ‘Toss’d from thought to thought I rove’
• 9. Defiance: ‘All danger disdaining’
• 10. Recovery and Reinvention: ‘Strange reverse of human fate’
• 11. ‘Hallelujah’
• 12. Winding Down: ‘Great in wisdom, great in glory’
• 13. The Final Act: ‘With honour let desert be crown’d’
• Afterword
• Illustrations Insert
• Acknowledgements
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Index
• Copyright