February 7, 1685 - April 14, 1759
Baroque Period
Georg Friedrich Händel was born in Halle, Germany. But since he spent most of his professional life in England, he's better known as George Frederick Handel.
Even though Handel was very interested in music, his father (who was a barber and surgeon) was not. There's a story that Handel smuggled a clavichord -- a VERY quiet instrument -- into the house so that he could practice in secret. Handel's father insisted that his son become a lawyer, until the day that Handel sat down at the keyboard and dazzled a duke. The duke convinced Handel's father to let his son study music.
What Handel really loved was opera. At the time, Italy was the place to learn about that, so Handel went to Italy for four years. After he got home to Germany, he was hired as court composer to a prince. But he immediately asked for time off to go to England, where people really liked Italian opera. (When the English got tired of opera, Handel built a whole new career for himself composing oratorios.)
Through a strange set of circumstances, Handel's princely German employer wound up becoming king of England. When he got to London, he didn't need to hire a court composer, because he found his court composer from Germany -- namely Handel -- was there!
See other composers from the Baroque period
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