George Frideric Handel
August 10, 2014, Ames IA Cloudy
It is exciting to find something you like! One day, a Handel’s piece was popped up on my Pandora. The music is so outstanding that I stopped my work and checked which piece it is. It is one of the pieces in his Concerti Grossi. If you are interested in collecting CDs, I recommend the recording from Academy of Ancient Music from London. The album contains two CDs, consisting of HWV 319-330 composed in 1740 (Note: his work is cataloged using HWV developed around 1980s).
Handel’s music is the same period as Bach’s, which we call Baroque music (the Baroque architecture is also the same period). Some of the famous music genres today such as opera,concerto and sonata are established during that period. So Handel was producing fairly modern music back then. In addition to HWV 319-330, I like his Messiah, Water Music, Theodora and Alessandro. Among these, an interesting genre is called Oratorios, which is the composition of orchestra, soloist and choir with no story lines or costumes behind it like opera. I feel his music is down to earth, progressive, and hard to get tired of. Compared to Bach’s, it contains a little more decoration; compared to Vivaldi’s four seasons, it is a little more unpredictable; and compared to Mozart’s Sonata, it is a little more muscular.