George Frideric Handel
Georg Friederich Händel was born in 1685, a vintage year indeed for baroque composers, in Halle on the Saale river in Thuringia, Germany on February 23rd. From Germany to England – via Italy. Though his father had intended him for the law, Handel's own musical inclinations seem always to have been clear to him. At the age of 18, in 1703, he traveled to Hamburg, where he took a job as a violinist at the Hamburg Opera and gave private lessons to support himself. He became acquainted with Johann Mattheson (who later chronicled the known events of Handel's life during his stay there) and together they visited Buxtehude in Lübeck in that first year. In the new year Handel's first two operas were produced, Almira and Nero . Whilst in Hamburg, Handel made the acquaintance of Prince Ferdinando de' Medici, son and heir of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who invited Handel to visit Italy where he spent more than three years, in Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice. By 1706 ...