cover image George Frideric Handel: A Life with Friends

George Frideric Handel: A Life with Friends

Ellen T. Harris. Norton, $37.95 (496p) ISBN 978-0-393-08895-3

In 1749, the 64-year-old George Frideric Handel enjoyed one of his most remarkable oratorio seasons, premiering Susanna, Solomon and staging revivals of Hercules, Samson, and Messiah. Despite of his fame, Handel’s private life continues to remain a bit mysterious. Drawing heavily on Handel’s letters, diaries, financial accounts, and wills of Handel’s closest friends, music historian Harris pulls back the curtain on Handel’s life, ambitions, and involvement in the political, religious, and charity life of early- and mid-18th-century London. As she points out, while Handel did not explicitly depict his friends in his musical works, they provide the best illustration of his listening public. For example, Rinaldo, which set in the Middle East, would not have seemed exotic to James Hunter, who worked with the British East India Company; the legal problems that afflicted the title character in Susanna also plagued Mary Delany and her husband. Handel composed much of his chamber music and keyboard music for private performances in homes, and his friend Lord Shaftesbury once remarked that in these settings “Handel was in high spirits and I think never played and sung so well.” Although Harris often lapses into an academic voice (“as I stated earlier,” “as has been described”), she nevertheless has written ay readable tale of one of the world’s most enigmatic musicians and composers. (Sept.)