Handel the Entrepreneur

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We think of Handel primarily as a composer - and of course he was one of the great musical figures who brought Baroque era to its glorious fruition.  He is often paired in this regard with Bach, another native German who was born in the same year, 1685, not eighty miles away from the town where Handel was born.  Yet the two composers, as men, could not have been more different.

Bach is described as humble, even subservient, while biographers tell us Handel was independent and strong-willed.  Bach stuck close to home all his life, and used his musical gifts to delight (and instruct!) a relatively circumscribed, local audience. While Handel set off early into a wider sphere, settling in his twenties in Italy, where he achieved initial fame as a young star, and then later in London, where his cosmopolitan charm and worldly ambition helped him become a superstar, moving easily amongst Europe's movers and shakers.

And though it may be an oversimplification, some have noted that while Bach chose to serve God, in the employ of various clerics, Handel chose to serve Handel, as an entrepreneur.

Handel not only composed but helped produce and present the Italianate operas he was initially known for. (In the words of one essayist, "A big time impresario, Handel had his own money on the line.") And then, in a kind of service to his adopted nation - which was then, in the early 18th century, approaching the height of its own entrepreneurial adventuring - Handel moved on from the vogue for Italian opera (because his audience had done so) and created the English oratorio. His great works in this form include Saul, Israel in Egypt, Samson, Theodora,Messiah and of course , which premiered in 1742 and solidified the composer's fortune.

Handel was able to mobilize his proven skills as an opera dramatist and give the oratorio some real punch.  Moreover, the oratorio form afforded Handel at least three major advantages:  it appealed to a broader audience (it was sung in English and came across as less "refined"); it was better suited to bolstering the imperial side of the British spirit (several of the oratorios celebrate the triumph of righteous peoples); and it was cheaper to produce.

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Handel's death in 1759.  There are celebrations and commemorative performances everywhere, including at Westminster Abby, where the composer is buried.  But perhaps no greater memorial exists than the enduring influence one hears of Handel's musical invention and grandeur in the work of subsequent composers - including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. (The latter adored him and once said Handel "was the greatest composer who ever lived. I would uncover my head, and kneel before his tomb.")

Hallelujah, anyone?