Born as the son of a barber in Halle, he showed a pronounced musical talent and studied organ, violin and composition.

 

In 1703 he moved to Hamburg and played in the opera orchestra under Reinhard Keizer (1674 - 1739); his first opera was staged there in 1705. A Medici prince invited him to Florence; there and in Rome he wrote oratorios, cantatas and other operas under the auspices of cardinals and nobility.

 

Employed by the Elector of Hanover (1710) as Kapellmeister, he asked permission to visit London before he took on his responsibility. His opera Rinaldo (1711) immediately made a name for itself there.

 

Leaving Hanover, he stayed in England for the rest of his life. In 1714, the German Elector George I of England was appointed; all anger at Handel's apostasy vanished, and the king became one of his patrons.

 

Handel was appointed music director of the new Royal Academy of Music, an opera house that flourished until public tastes turned away from Italian opera. In 1732 he revised his oratorio Esther for a public performance, the first public oratorio performance in England.

 

His success was followed by many other English-language oratorios, including his great Messiah (1741); by that time he had made oratorios and large choral works the most popular forms of music in