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Handel: The Man & His Music Fifth Edition. Edition
Author(s): Jonathan Keates (Author)
- Publisher: Pimlico
- Publication Date: May 1, 2010
- Edition: Fifth Edition.
- Language: English
- Print length: 434 pages
- ISBN-10: 1845951158
- ISBN-13: 9781845951153
Book Description
Over the last two decades a complete revolution in Handel’s status has taken place. He is now seen both as a titanic figure in music, and as one of the world’s favorite composers, with snatches of his work accompanying weddings, funerals, and television commercials the world over. Though unquestionably one of the greatest and best-loved of all composers, George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) had received little attention from biographers before Jonathan Keates’s masterful biographyappeared in 1985. This fully updated and expanded edition charts in detail Handel’s life, from his youth in Germany, through his brilliantly successful Italian sojourn, to the opulence and squalor of Georgian London. Written with sympathy and penetration about this extraordinary genius, it details Handel’s career which abounded in reversals that would have crushed anyone with less resilience and willpower, but his influence was deeply felt by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Interwoven with the account of Handel’s life are commentaries on all his major works, as well as many less familiar pieces by this most inventive, expressive, and captivating of composers.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Will still be valued in a hundred years’ time . . . the book as a whole is an event.” —Spectator
“Quirky and colorful.”
—Library Journal“Has been skilfully updated in tribute to today’s thriving Handel industry through which the composer has risen.”
—Herald“Full of extremely penetrating, well-judged observations on both man and music.”
—The Times“Readers cannot go wrong if they choose Keates’s account, which is always thoughtful and well-informed, and simmers with an unashamed passion for the music itself.”
—Sunday Telegraph“Keates appraises his works with passionate scrutiny, capturing superbly the increasing solitude of Handel’s English years.”
—Sunday TimesAbout the Author
Jonathan Keates is a biographer and novelist. His other titles include Allegro Postillions, for which he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Purcell, and Stendhal.
