Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music , two of his greatest orchestral achievements, have become synonymous with mid-18th-century England and with the pomp, ceremony and tradition of British royalty. But is this music necessarily synonymous with Handel? Where did his eclecticism and experimentalism come from? How and why did he conquer the emerging genre of the English oratorio and what were the circumstances that allowed him to become one of opera’s greatest composers? This revealing audio biography is accompanied by musical examples drawn from his orchestral and instrumental music, his cantatas, oratorios, operas and those two famous royal commissions.

Artists

Nicholas Boulton, Aradia Ensemble (early music ensemble), Simon Lindley, Bradley Creswick, Brook Street Band (chamber ensemble), Amanda Forsythe (soprano), Adam LaMotte, William Skeen, Richard Savino, Jennifer Ellis Kampani, Thierry Gregoire, La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roy (early music ensemble), Susanne Rydén, London Baroque (early music ensemble), Bohdan Warchal, Dunedin Consort Chorus, The Dunedin Consort (early music ensemble), John Butt (organ), Philip Edward Fisher, Axel Köhler, Handel Festival Orchestra, Howard Arman, Thomas Tallis Chamber Choir, Royal Academy Consort, Scholars Baroque Ensemble, Laszlo Czidra, Pal Kelemen, Zsuzsa Pertis, Northern Sinfonia, Apollo's Fire, Cappella Istropolitana, Kevin Mallon, Jeannette Sorrell, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Charles Medlam, Jeremy Summerly, Richard Edlinger